Not all problems in Europe have been solved, so we have a country in our neighbourhood whose strongest party claims that the state border is along the Virovtica - Karlovac - Karlobag line in Croatia as its western border and in the middle of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mesic said. This does not mean that a war will break out, but to be sure we need to join NATO, the Croatian President said.
Speaking about Croatian soldiers in Afghanistan, Mesic said Croatia withdrew some of its troops and sent them back to Kabul.
Mesic said the soldiers would be returned to Croatia should their lives be in danger.
An international conference on NATO transformation started in Riga, ahead of the NATO summit on Tuesday.
At the conference NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that NATO's mission in Afghanistan, the most difficult mission in the history of the alliance with 32,000 soldiers, could succeed and that the retreat from the country could start by 2008.
Croatia is represented at the conference in Riga by a state secretary in the Foreign Ministry, Hido Biscevic, Ambassador to NATO Davor Bozinovic and the president of the Atlantic Council of Croatia Radovan Vukadinovic. This evening, the event will be addressed US President George W. Bush.