"The ship did not enter Savudrija Bay. It was very far away from the border line which both sides must respect until a solution to the Croatia-Slovenia border problem is found," spokesman for the Croatian Foreign Ministry Dobroslav Silobrcic told Hina.
Silobrcic said that the Croatian Navy ship was conducting a regular task of searching for and identifying ships in the waters of western Istria and as part of the duty of controlling and protecting territorial waters and the Ecological and Fisheries Protection Zone.
"The Solta ship was on a routine patrol...it did not sail out to provoke an incident and it did not take part in any incident," Silobrcic said.
Silobrcic, however, stressed that Slovene police entered the Croatian waters a day earlier about 1.6 miles south of the demarcation line.
He said state secretary in the Croatian Foreign Ministry Hido Biscevic met Istria County prefect Ivan Jakovcic on Thursday to talks about Croatian fishermen and the necessity to avoid all incidents.
"State secretary Biscevic was on his way back from a meeting with his Slovene counterpart Anton Rop in Italy's Trieste and confirmed that our ship did not take part in the incident," Silobrcic said.
Slovene Foreign Minister Ivo Vajgl harshly criticised Croatian authorities on Thursday evening, claiming that a Croatian navy ship sailed into Savudrija Bay which, according to him, represented an aggressive policy aimed at creating new facts about the disputed bay. He said he would inform European foreign ministers of the incident at a meeting in Luxembourg on Monday.