THE Balkan Political Club was born in Sofia at the weekend to work towards a new strategy for solving the region's complex problems.

It was founded on the initiative of former Bulgarian President Zhelyu Zhelev, and includes Balkan leaders like Romanian President Ion Iliescu, former Turkish President Suleyman Demirel, former Romanian President Emil Constantinescu, former Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov, former Albanian Prime Minister Fatos Nano, and Professor Mladen Ivanic, Prime Minister of the Republika Srpska in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Zhelev was elected its president. "The club's long-term strategy will be not to do away with the tragic consequences of the Balkan conflicts but to eradicate the reasons for these conflicts altogether. We will not and cannot wipe out the national, ethnic, or religious differences and contradictions in the Balkans, but we can put an end to the violence, and in particular the armed violence, as a means of solving these differences and contradictions," he said.

According to him, the key to settling problems is to build a communications and energy infrastructure - still obsolete in most Balkan states - as quickly as possible.

Bulgarian President Petar Stoyanov said in a Sunday morning address to the forum: "The Balkan Political Club, with so many leading politicians, public figures, and intellectuals among its members, can help the Balkans finally become an integral part of the future single Europe, which will be a true and final guarantee for the prosperity of the region."

He said he believed major joint infrastructure projects and combined Balkan efforts for their implementation would be more important than any political dialogue - because ultimately they meant a common interest.

The Balkan Political Club adopted a manifesto setting out its ideas and ways to implement them. The club is intended to be a formation in which responsible political figures from the countries in the region will express their views about the future.

The role of Western Europe and the U.S. would not be ignored, but solutions should be sought and found by the countries in the Balkans, and implemented consistently and with good will, Iliescu told the forum.

Nano proposed the establishment of a Balkan Parliamentary Assembly similar to the European one.

Compromise was the only solution in a territory populated by different ethnic groups, said Ivanic. The international community approach of favouritism and taking partial, single decisions on the Balkans proved to be a very negative one, which did not lead to lasting solutions and always created an opportunity for the conflicts to resurface, he said.

Constantinescu said the integration processes are the only answer to the security imperatives and stated that Russia too should make commitments and realise that it is not merely the security of the great powers in the modern world which has an influence on the global situation.