Roncevic and Davinic on Friday attended the international conference "NATO After Istanbul - Security in Southeast Europe", which was organised in Zagreb by the Atlantic Council Croatia nongovernmental organisation in cooperation with NATO's Information and Media Office.
"The incident sent a wrong message on the day when Vukovar commemorated its tragedy. That is not a day when somebody should spite their neighbours. This should be avoided and colleague Davinic said he was confident that this would not and must not occur again. His words can be accepted as an apology and we should not additionally politicise the issue," Roncevic said.
He recalled that Davinic said earlier in the day that he had been informed by his services that the unarmed military ship which patrolled the Danube yesterday, on the remembrance day for the victims of Vukovar, had not entered Croatian waters, and expressed regret that the ship was performing "its normal activities" on that day.
Roncevic said the Croatian services had different information but, he added, the case should not be politicised any further. All should be done to prevent the recurrence of such events, the minister said.
Roncevic also voiced satisfaction with Serbia-Montenegro's decision to withdraw the army from the border with Croatia and replace it with police.
In this context, he said that it was inappropriate for two countries wishing to develop good neighbourly relations to have the army of one of them controlling the border.
Roncevic said he and Davinic also discussed bilateral cooperation.
Discussing a memorandum on cooperation between the armies of Croatia and the United States, the Croatian minister said his ministry and several other ministries had prepared the text of the memorandum and that the line of command had not been overstepped in that case.
"I have examined all pertinent materials and documents made since 2000 and established that acts with such contents have never been sent to the Office of the President for previous approval," Roncevic told reporters covering the conference.
"I agree with President Stjepan Mesic and I have told him that I am absolutely open to cooperation and I let him decide on the pace of talks. I believe that we shall continue the talks and that there will be no problems any more," the minister said.
He went on to say that the Croatian Air Force Commander, Brigadier General Viktor Koprivnjak, was at the helm of the commission in charge of drawing up the agreement with the USA, and that the Croatian army's chief of staff, Josip Lucic, who holds regular weekly briefings with Mesic, had been notified of the contents of the memorandum,
"Unfortunately, they seem to have failed to inform the president of that," the minister said.
President Mesic, who is also the supreme commander of the national armed forces, said recently that he had learned of the memorandum, which was signed in July this year, from the press.