RFE/RL NEWSLINE 
Vol. 1, No. 101, 22 August 1997

HUNGARY SAYS NATO ENTRY TALKS TO START IN SEPTEMBER.
Government spokesman Elemer Kiss on 21 August told reporters that
a delegation of experts headed by Foreign Ministry State Secretary
Ferenc Somogyi will start talks on Hungary's accession to NATO on 10
September and that it is expected the talks will be concluded in late
October. Kiss also said the government was "shocked" by the position
recently expressed by the opposition Alliance of Young Democrats,
which called for the planned referendum on accession to NATO to be
recently expressed by the opposition Alliance of Young Democrats,
which called for the planned referendum on accession to NATO to be
binding. He said all seven parliamentary parties agreed in July that a
non-biding referendum would be held before late November. Kiss
also rejected the idea that the referendum on NATO accession be held
simultaneously with a plebiscite on allowing foreign companies to
purchase land in Hungary.

HUNGARIAN NUCLEAR REACTOR CLOSED FOR 10 DAYS? The chief
engineer at the Paks nuclear plant told Reuters on 21 August that the
reactor shut down the previous day could be out of action for up to
10 days. Balazs Kovacs said that if the problem proves to be inside
the block, rather than in the external mechanism of the rod, "we will
have to use underwater cameras to see why the rod cannot be
moved from its position and dismantle the reactor." He added that
the safety of the reactor was not threatened and that the 10 percent
shortfall in nationwide electricity output would easily be made up by
other Hungarian power stations.

NEWS FROM FORMER YUGOSLAVIA. The Hungarian Defense Ministry
announced in Budapest on 21 August that 30 soldiers have left for
Mostar, where they will reconstruct the 16th century Turkish stone
bridge that Croatian gunners destroyed in 1993 during the Croat-
Muslim war. The soldiers will first retrieve as much of the original
bridge as possible from the bottom of the Neretva River. In Zagreb,
Croatian and Israeli officials agreed to establish full diplomatic
relations after the Croatia fully condemned and apologized for
atrocities committed against Jews by Croatia's fascist government
during World War II. In Belgrade, the army issued a statement
denying press reports that the military is preparing to introduce a
state of emergency. The text added that the army supports the
constitution and the democratic process and denounced what it called
attempts to drag the military into day-to-day politics.
constitution and the democratic process and denounced what it called
attempts to drag the military into day-to-day politics.


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