"It's high time we said it openly -- we are determined to locate, arrest and hand over Gotovina," the minister told Reuters news agency on Tuesday.
Speaking of her meeting with ICTY Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte in The Hague on Monday, Skare Ozbolt said that the prosecutor was not convinced that the Croatian government was willing to arrest Gotovina.
"The prosecutor was angered by our calls for Gotovina to surrender and did not believe we were ready to go out and arrest him," the minister said.
Skare Ozbolt denied allegations made by EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn on Monday that the European Commission believed that the Zagreb government was in indirect contact with Gotovina, but she said there were indications that the general might be hiding in neighbouring Bosnia-Herzegovina.
"We have had no contact with Gotovina but we have sent out some people to try to find him," she said. "So far there has been no feedback. There was one lead that he might be hiding in Bosnia. We are checking up on it and have informed the tribunal of our actions. But I doubt he will be there. The man is a legionnaire and could go anywhere."
Foreign Minister Miomir Zuzul, Chief Public Prosecutor Mladen Bajic and the Assistant Justice Minister for cooperation with the ICTY, Jaksa Muljacic, were also in The Hague on Monday.
A source close to the Croatian delegation briefly said that information on Gotovina was exchanged at the meeting with the chief prosecutor. No other details were revealed.
Reuters said in its report that Croatia, moving to rescue its European Union membership bid, ordered police and intelligence services on Tuesday to step up the hunt for a top fugitive wanted by the United Nations war crimes tribunal.
The agency said that President Stjepan Mesic and Prime Minister Ivo Sanader issued a rare joint statement publicly ordering increased efforts to track down Gotovina, who has been in hiding since he was indicted in 2001 for war crimes against Serbs.
Until now, Croatia has mostly urged the 49-year old former foreign legion veteran, who also has a French passport, to surrender voluntarily. Many Croats see him as a hero of the 1991-95 war of
independence from Serb-dominated Yugoslavia, a status which the government has tacitly tolerated, Reuters said.