ANSA today announced an exclusive interview with Mesic which RAI 3 will air on Saturday. According to the Italian news agency, the president spoke about Croatia's European future as well as on Croatian-Italian relations and reconciliation, which he said was necessary because of a "difficult past" and "divisions stemming from a different reading of the history of the inhabitants of Istria, Venezia-Giulia and border areas in general during World War II".
Italian and Croatian media said earlier this month that Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi had announced his intention, in agreement with Slovenia and Croatia, to change the 1975 Osimo Agreements and the 1983 Rome Treaty on financial compensation for nationalised property which had belonged to Italian citizens in Zone B of the former Free Territory of Trieste.
During a visit to Slovenia early this month, Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema reactivated an initiative for a meeting of the presidents of Italy, Slovenia and Croatia which he said would usher in a new era of political cooperation between the three states.
According to his office, Mesic said "the heads of state have nothing to make peace over as they have not quarrelled, but all three states simply have to accept certain historical facts".
In the interview, Mesic openly condemned the crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia at the end of World War II, but underlined that those crimes had been in retaliation for what the fascist Italy's armada had been doing for years, and that present-day Italy should acknowledge this.
Speaking of Croatia's European Union integration, Mesic told RAI 3 that Croatia wanted to join the EU and NATO as soon as possible, and that he felt this might happen by 2010, his office said.