THIRD ROUND OF BOSNIAN POLICE REFORM NEGOTIATIONS STARTED

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (September 25,2007) – Representatives of 8 biggest Bosnia's political parties assembled yesterday at the Office of the International Community's High Representative in Bosnia (OHR) for the third round of technical negotiations on Bosnian police reform.

The new platform has been proposed by the International Community's High Representative Miroslav Lajcak.

Agreement between the political parties’ representatives is a precondition for the signing of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement between Bosnia and the EU (SAA). It should be reached by the end of the month because the European commission has prepared a new annual report on Bosnia's progress on the way to the European Union.

SDA Party representative Semsudin Mehmedovic announced that he will propose other parties’ representatives to be more flexible and to work longer hours today if necessary, for unless the talks are over before the end of the week, it would be pointless to continue them.

Representative of the Party of Democratic progress Slobodan Nagradic is of the opinion that the talks will not finish with this round of negotiations and that the higher party authorities will have the last say.

SDP BiH Party representative Tomislav Limov is hoping that a step forward will be achieved and that preconditions for police reform will be created, for there is no alternative to that.

Limov is of the opinion that the agreement is primarily needed for the sake of the Bosnian citizens’ interests. He added that the parliamentary majority bears most of the responsibility.