Talks on stability fan old enmities

PARIS - More than 40 European countries pledged yesterday to work for a stability pact to settle border and minority problems in Eastern Europe, despite Russian reservations and the reawakening of old antagonisms. In an attempt to avert more Yugoslav-style conflicts, foreign ministers at a Conference on Stability in Europe agreed to set up regional talks directly involving nine East European countries seeking to join the European Union.

Accords reached will be included in a formal stability pact, which the EU hopes to see signed within a year.

Documents adopted left vague key details of who would be taking part in the talks and there were signs that the meeting had stirred up some of the disputes it was meant to resolve.

The conference was marked by indignant exchanges between Hungary and Romania, Greece and Albania, and Italy and Slovenia.

Slovenia was kept off the list of Central and East European countries designated as potential EU members at the insistence of Italy's new right-wing government. Rome has property claims against Slovenia dating from the Second World War.

The nine countries listed as potential members were Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. The agreement, which ignores existing conflicts such as those in Bosnia and Nagorny Karabakh, calls for two round tables - one on the Baltic region and the other for six Eastern European nations. They are to deal with minority rights, language issues and cross-border co-operation.