The head of the Croatian parliament's delegation to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, Tonino Picula, sent a letter to the Assembly's president Alcee L. Hastings on September 24, expressing concern over the latest incident on the Croatian-Slovene border, provoked by Slovene parliamentary deputies.
"Slovenia is trying to use this provoked incident as a form of pressure, making its support to Croatia's candidacy for EU membership conditional on the acceptance of Slovene requests in the solving of outstanding bilateral issues," Picula said in his letter.
He said that 12 Slovene politicians, led by the Slovene People's Party chief Janez Podobnik, crossed the Croatian-Slovene border on September 22 and refused to identify themselves to the Croatian police "wanting to provoke an incident aimed at scoring political points ahead of the coming parliamentary elections in Slovenia".
The 12 Slovene citizens illegally crossed the Slovene-Croatian border near the Plovanija border crossing to reach the house of Josko Joras, a Slovene living in Buje, who is known for denying Croatia's territorial integrity in that part of the border area.
"Provoking such incidents ahead of every elections in Slovenia has unfortunately become a practice in the Slovene political system," Picula said in his letter.
Slovenia and Croatia had excellent bilateral cooperation in many fields and added that the most effective solution to the two countries' border issue would be international arbitration, Picula said in his letter to the president of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly whom he asked for understanding and assistance.