"Croatia also has the obligation to do this in order to give Gotovina an opportunity to say what he thinks about what happened and about the charges in the indictment, and also for the sake of our past," Skare Ozbolt told a press conference in the Ministry of Justice.
She said that Tuesday's joint statement by President Stjepan Mesic and Prime Minister Ivo Sanader made it even more clear that Croatia was doing its utmost to track down the runaway general.
"Yesterday's message says that Croatia will really do everything in its power to put a stop to speculations which always arise at the time of important events, that Croatia is not taking all the necessary steps," the minister said.
Skare Ozbolt declined to comment on an article in today's issue of the weekly Globus, which says that the government engaged Jure Kapetanovic as its secret envoy for negotiations with Gotovina, saying that this was not part of her job.
The minister reiterated that the government was not in contact with Gotovina, and said it was interesting that those claiming that the general was hiding in Croatia never revealed his exact whereabouts.