DJUKANOVIC URGES SEPARATE RECOGNITION OF SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO

ZAGREB, Nov 24 (Hina) - Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic proposed during Friday's Summit in Zagreb that Montenegro and Serbia should be recognised separately after which his country would be ready to talk about some kind of alliance between these two states. Giving his speech at the closed-door plenary session of the Summit, Djukanovic expounded a new Montenegrin initiative for the

redefinition of ties between the incumbent members of the Yugoslav federation. His speech was circulated among journalists in the Summit's press centre. The Montenegrin initiative, he said, starts from the deep doubt whether one should maintain the appearance of the joint state, which in the meantime was reduced to a few functions discredited through the dictatorship, or if one should follow reality which is made up by the restored functional states of Serbia and Montenegro. Djukanovic quoted four reasons which support this initiative:

Montenegro holds that it is more rational to sanction the real state of affairs than build a new, fourth Yugoslavia; Montenegro and Serbia are old Balkan countries - recognised internationally long time ago; the Badinter commission's findings recognise the international subjectivity of Montenegro and Serbia; the

experience from the last eight years shows it is difficult to bridge problems in the functioning of a community with disproportionate members. The Montenegrin president believes that the projection of Serbian-Montenegrin relations which could be entailed from this initiative was in the interest of Belgrade, Podgorica and the entire region.