Croatian Delegation Held Talks On Weapons' Proliferation During Visit to U.S.

WASHINGTON, February 7 – Croatian parliamentary and government delegation visited United States and held talks with U.S. officials on cooperation in prevention of proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons as well as of conventional arms.

Croatian delegation, headed by Kresimir Cosic, member of Croatian Parliament and head of the Croatian delegation to NATO's parliamentary Assembly, met with officials in Congress, Coast Guard representatives as well as officials from several U.S. Departments.

Croatia should create mechanisms for the effective protection against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and the United States will help it in such bids, said Kresimir Cosic.

American experts will help Croatia to pass laws and ensure protection mechanisms so as to make it impossible for those sorts of arms, material and technology to end up in the hands of terrorist organizations. US inspectors are visiting several Croatian ports in order to advance the control of cargo and prevention of the transit of dangerous materials.

Cosic warned that Croatia had not yet had a developed system for curbing arms smuggling and that it should develop adequate mechanisms. "Croatia is at a point where different corridors intersect, which are connected not only with trafficking in drugs and human beings but also very sensitive materials that pose a security threat to the modern world," Cosic told reporters after the end of the visit to the United States.

All this forces us to be more cautious and to upgrade the security level, not only because of Croatian effort to enter the European Union and NATO, but to adequately protect Croatia's 6,000-kilometre-long coastline, Cosic said. This was a topic of the talks between Croatia's delegation and the US Coast Guard representatives.

Cosic held talks with Charles English, the director of the the State Department's office for central and southern Europe, and with Congressman Doug Bereuter, the head of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, on Washington's support to Croatia's bids to join the Alliance.

Cosic told reporters he believed the talks had shown that Croatia had reason to expect stronger support in light of the new Croatian government's efforts to settle not only political but also security issues.