Slovenian Foreign Minister

Year and place of birth: January 21, 1962 in Kranj. He's exhilarated about that date; he bragged that it is the date Ludwig XVI was executed and Vladimir Ilich Lenin died.

Education and career: He was a grade A pupil in elementary school and won several competitions. He joined the Slobodni Kamnitnik scout troop in 1969 and became head of the troop in high school and chairman of a UN club. He also had to solve a great dilemma: whether to study political sciences or become a meteorologist.

Nickname: Zok. His long thin legs earned him the nickname Stork as a boy.

Party membership: He joined the League of Communists in 1980 at age 18. He hitchhiked to Belgrade in May that year after Tito died and waited patiently in line to pay his respects to the Marshall. That earned him a reprimand at first in high school because of his absence and later praise.

How did he enter politics: He started distributing Tribuna student magazine in spring 1984 and made a obituary for Yugoslavia with a friend. The newspaper was banned but the editor in chief got the blame. Zoran was appointed to the Slovenian university Socialist Youth Organization presidency.

Problems with style: He bought a pair of glasses with heavy black frames in Bologna because he thought they made him look older. Those glasses later became an inseparable part of his overall image.

And: Zoran is fascinated with terrorism and is considered an expert on the Red Brigades. He published the recipe for a Molotov cocktail under an alias in Tribuna. He graduated from university in 1986 with a paper on international political terrorism.

How did he get to Belgrade: He got a job as an expert consultant in the foreign relations council and became a member of the federal Youth Organization conference charged with relations with Asian and east European countries.

How did he get back to Ljubljana: He was appointed chairman of the foreign relations council and professional member of the Youth Organization presidency (headed by Joze Skolc) in the spring of 1988. He urged tighter relations with western Europe and wrote a European declaration which he published as a political manifesto in Mladina magazine.

What's his reputation: While other apparatchiks wore sweaters, Zoran wore suits and ties. He signs everything diligently.

Is he politically consistent: Prior to the 1990 elections he was head of the Slovenian Youth Organization-Liberal party election staff. When negotiations fell through on posts in the DEMOS government he transferred to the side of newly elected foreign minister Dimitrij Rupelj as his deputy which his former party colleagues called treason.

What is he remembered for: In January 1994, he made sarcastic comments about the Slovenian foreign ministry (headed by Franc Peterle) which welcomed a normalization of relations between Croatia and Yugoslavia: "If a normalization of relations with the FRY is praiseworthy, what about normalization between Slovenia and the FRY?"

A little more about his reputation: Before he became foreign minister in January he was a member of a parliamentary foreign policy committee working group for borders; he toured villages on the border with Croatia which caused a wave of belligerent dissatisfaction in Slovenia's southern neighbor.

New post, new nickname: Commentators, and not only in the Italian press, call him Hawk.

S.V.M.