[ALBSA-Info] {QIKSH =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=AB?=ALBEUROPA=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=BB?=} Kostunica Pledges To Respect Will Of Montenegro

[Nikoll A Mirakaj]

Kostunica Pledges To Respect Will Of Montenegro 

ROME, Oct 13, 2000 -- (Reuters) Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunuca said on Thursday that if the people of Montenegro wanted to break away from the Yugoslav Federation in the future, their will would be respected.

Kostunica, who took office on Saturday after mass protests forced Slobodan Milosevic to finally concede defeat in a September ballot, said it was Milosevic's fault if relations between Belgrade and Podgorica were now strained.

"The democratic changes in Serbia will one day make possible a democratic dialogue with Montenegro," he said in television interview with one of Italy's most prominent TV reporters.

A text of the interview was released ahead of its broadcast on Thursday night.

Dialogue, he said, would "lead to new constitutional solutions through a testing of the will of the people of Serbia and Montenegro to live in the same state or not".

Yugoslavia includes the powerful republic of Serbia and the much smaller republic of Montenegro in the south.

"The relations between the two countries will in any case be worked out in respect of the will of the people," he said, referring to a pledge he has made in the past that referendums should be held in both republics.

"If the will of the people of Montenegro will be not to be part of the federation, this will is to be respected, even if history, mutual relations and the current situation lead one to think that the intention of having one common state will prevail," he said.

(C)2000 Copyright Reuters Limited

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