"Italian Deputy Prime Minister Giancarlo Fini has never granted an interview to Slobodna Dalmacija," Fini's spokesman told the Trieste-based daily Il Piccolo on Friday.
"There has been no request for an interview with Fini. The interview, we repeat, has never happened. The Croatian journalist simply 'tailored' the interview, taking some of Fini's sentences out of context and portraying them as a conversation, effectively creating a forgery," the spokesman said.
The author of the interview, Senol Selimovic, said that he had had a long, informal conversation with Fini during an annual meeting in Senigallia of Italians who left Istria and Dalmatia in the wake of World War Two, and that he had a tape of the conversation. Il Picollo said that Selimovic distanced himself from the headline of the interview, describing it as exaggerated.
The Italian newspaper further said that the Croatian Foreign Ministry also agreed with this assessment and decided not attach too much importance to the event. Zagreb decided to conclude the incident, reaffirming its excellent relations with Italy, it said.