"Slovenia and Croatia are negotiating on avoiding border incidents, but unfortunately incidents keep recurring," Rupel told a news conference called on the occasion of Europe Day, May 9.
Rupel said his ministry was preparing a diplomatic note regarding the latest events in Savudrija Bay (known as Piran Bay in Slovenia) and on the Mura river -- between Hotiza in Slovenia and Sveti Martin on Mura, Croatia.
According to reports recently published in the Slovene media, Slovenia termed as incidents the placing of two new buoys in Savudrija Bay and the replacement of an old ferry owned by Hotiza with a new Croatian ferry. In connection with that, Rupel called Croatian Foreign Minister Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic twice in the past several days.
The Croatian Foreign and European Integration Ministry said that the replacement of the ferry cannot be considered an incident, because the ferry was so old that Slovene institutions refused to issue new work papers, with Croatian institutions following suit.
This was no confiscation, but the exclusion of a faulty vessel from transport, an unnamed source from the Croatian ministry told Hina,
Grabar Kitarovic will not contact the residents on the Croatian bank of the Mura river and ask them to return the boat because the boat was never confiscated.
The Croatian Foreign Ministry said that Rupel was most probably not entirely informed of the administrative and legal facts of that case when he spoke to Minister Grabar Kitarovic.
"Despite occasional misunderstandings, Slovenia wants Croatia to adopt European criteria of responsible conduct in international relations," Rupel told the news conference.
He said that Slovenia insisted on the standpoint that the state of affairs registered on 25 June 1991, when Croatia and Slovenia declared independence, be the two countries' border line until a new agreement was reached.