The government will again contact the tribunal and the prosecution, Skare Ozbolt told reporters in the parliament, adding that chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte had announced that she would continue not to oppose the provisional release of the two generals.
"One should not be pessimistic, we will do our best to have our requests accepted," the minister said.
She added that the tribunal's decision did not mean the defeat of the government's policy of cooperation with the tribunal.
She recalled that generals Rahim Ademi and Mirko Norac had been returned to Croatia and that their trials would probably be transferred to a Croatian court, that Tihomir Blaskic returned before serving his sentence in full, and that six Bosnian Croats had returned to Croatia on guarantees provided by the Croatian government.
At the time when government officials announced that Markac and Cermak would soon return to Croatia, the government had the guarantees of the tribunal's representatives, Skare Ozbolt said.
Asked whether the tribunal's decision was affected by the case of the fugitive general Ante Gotovina, the minister said Croatia would continue to do all it could to have Gotovina appear before the tribunal, and that she believed that Markac and Cermak would not be held hostage to the "Gotovina case".
Asked whether the government had given the tribunal and the prosecution any guarantees as to when Gotovina could appear before the tribunal, the minister said the government had not given such guarantees nor was it able to give them.