Croatia on Tuesday handed over a diplomatic note to the charge d'affaires of the Slovene Embassy in Zagreb in order to point to frequent breaches of the Croatian state border at sea, the Croatian Foreign Ministry said in a press release. The note informs the Slovene Foreign Ministry of frequent breaches of the Croatian border in the area of Savudrija by Slovene police vessels as well as of disruption of economic activities of Croatian fishermen in that part of the Croatian territorial waters. The latest breaches occurred on 30 July and 2 August 2004 near Savudrija, according to Zagreb.
Spokeswoman for the Slovene police, Tadeja Kuhar, said that at about 08:00 hrs Tuesday a Slovene police boat, authorised to protect the state border, had spotted several Slovene and Croatian fishing boats in Piran Bay.
The police warned Croatian boats that they were inside the Slovene waters and a Croatian police boat acted in a similar manner asking Slovene fishing boats to leave the Croatian waters. The Croatian fishing boats left the disputable area at 13:30 hrs, and the police vessels did it at 14:00 hrs, Kuharova said.
The Slovene Foreign Ministry told local media that it had received the diplomatic note from Zagreb regarding the events in question. Ljubljana said it would use diplomatic channels to respond to Croatian claims as soon as possible.