Kostunica visits Bosnia-Herzegovina

Vojislav Kostunica, the new Yugoslav president, has visited Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is the first such trip by a Yugoslav leader since Bosnia declared independence. Mr Kostunica originally only planned to make a private visit to the Bosnian-Serb town Trebinje for church ceremonies surrounding the reburial of a Serb poet Jovan Ducic who died in exile in 1943. However, after Bosnian officials and Western envoys expressed concerns about the visit, the Yugoslav leader agreed that he would also fly briefly to the capital, Sarajevo, for talks at the airport with Muslim and Bosnian-Croat officials of the shared government.

The two countries have not established official relations since Bosnia-Herzegovina broke away from Yugoslavia in 1992. Professor Vladetta Jankovic, an expert on Serbian literature and a close political ally of Mr Kostunica, said that he did not believe the visit would be controversial. At Trebinje, Mr Kostunica was introduced to a crowd outside the church as Doctor Kostunica, but the republic's leaders made clear that they viewed it as an official visit by laying on an honour guard and greeting Mr Kostunica individually as "President".

Meanwhile, Mr Kostunica was reported yesterday to have ordered the release of a prominent Kosovo Albanian activist jailed for twelve years on terrorism charges under his predecessor Slobodan Milosevic. Beta news agency quoted a presidency source as saying that Kostunica, who took over from Milosevic two weeks ago, had ordered the federal Justice Ministry to arrange a pardon for Flora Brovina, a doctor, human rights activist and poet.