The statement came in the wake of documents the Slovene ministry released on its web site on Monday containing positions on the border dispute with Croatia and ex-Yugoslavia's guarantees for foreign exchange savings.
The Croatian ministry said Croatia and Slovenia were two friendly neighbours which shared European values and standards and which, in this spirit and in the full respect of international law, equality and acknowledgement of mutual interest, should close the remaining outstanding issues.
The fundamental assumption for closing those issues is a true, objective and fair presentation of the course of negotiations on border demarcation at sea and on the repayment of the debt of Ljubljanska Banka's Zagreb branch, which is not the case in the latest Slovene position, read the statement.
The Croatian ministry said it was unnecessary and inappropriate of Slovenia to use its membership of the European Union and NATO to impose conditions or pressure Croatia. It added that linking and making the closure of the border issue conditional on the closure of other outstanding issues was contrary to international standards and further burdened relations.
The Croatian ministry underlined that it was unacceptable and contrary to international law to include Slovenia's continental shelf and ecological zone in Slovenia's starting points for the closure of the sea border issue.
The proclamation of the continental shelf and ecological zone in the Adriatic is contrary to international law and legally void, the statement said, recalling that in an April 1993 memorandum on Piran Bay, Slovenia confirmed being a state in an unfavourable geographical position which could not proclaim maritime zones.
The Croatian ministry underlined that the two countries had unsuccessfully tried to settle the border issue many times over the last 15 years, and reiterated that there did not exist any legal document which would represent an alleged compromise on the sea border or endorse the unfounded position that Slovenia had preserved territorial access to the high seas.
The statement recalled that the Croatian government officially offered Slovenia arbitration on the border which would be binding for both sides, and that in April 2004 Slovenia publicly accepted arbitration and that this was confirmed by President Janez Drnovsek at the October 2005 Central European summit in Zagreb.
The Croatian ministry said the debt which Ljubljanska Banka owed Croatian clients was a legal issue between the bank and its clients which was currently being dealt with by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which was why Croatia did not consider it an issue of succession to the former Yugoslavia.