ZAGREB, Aug 20 (Hina) - Until Croatia and Slovenia reach a final agreement on the sea border, Croatia will respect international law and defend its sovereignty to the demarcation line in the middle of Piran Bay, the chairman of the
Croatian parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Zdravko Tomac, said in Zagreb on Tuesday. He said he refused to accept Slovenia's pressures, particularly its view that the land border between the two countries was subject to arbitration.
ZAGREB, Aug 20 (Hina) - Until Croatia and Slovenia reach a final
agreement on the sea border, Croatia will respect international law
and defend its sovereignty to the demarcation line in the middle of
Piran Bay, the chairman of the Croatian parliament's Committee on
Foreign Affairs, Zdravko Tomac, said in Zagreb on Tuesday.
He said he refused to accept Slovenia's pressures, particularly its
view that the land border between the two countries was subject to
arbitration. #L#
Speaking at a news conference in Zagreb, Tomac reacted to
statements by Slovene Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, who on
Monday suggested that until a final agreement was reached, an
agreement initialled by the Croatian and Slovene premiers should be
in effect. The agreement was not signed or ratified. Rupel also
suggested that the current situation in Piran Bay be put on hold,
meaning that the largest part of the bay belonged to Slovenia, and
claimed that Slovene police had controlled that area even before
the two countries gained their independence from the former
Yugoslavia.
"Croatia does not want a single square metre of another country's
territory, but will also firmly defend every square metre of its own
territory," Tomac said.
He stressed that Croatia's problem was not the actual border with
Slovenia, but rather the drawing of the demarcation line and
solution of some minor contentious issues.
Rupel's thesis that the land border should also be regulated
through international arbitration, if requested for the sea
border, is "very dangerous", Tomac said.
"This would bring into question the conclusion of the Badinter
Commission, according to which former republics of the former
Yugoslavia were internationally recognised," he said.
The Badinter Comission concluded in 1991 that borders between the
former Yugoslav republics were internationally recognised as the
borders of the new countries.
According to Tomac, by stating that the land border should also be
subject to arbitration, Rupel opened issues which impinged upon the
foundations of sovereignty of both Croatia and Slovenia, which
could become a precedent with very negative consequences for both
countries.
"These are closed issues and it is not a good idea to open them for
either side," Tomac said, recalling that both Croatian and Slovene
parliaments had established the borders in 1991, when they gained
independence.
The parliamentary committee chairman also dismissed Rupel's
explanations of "some historical rights, particularly his
statement that with the establishment of Yugoslavia in 1945,
Slovenia had lost a section of its ethnic territory to Italy, this
being an argument that this loss should be compensated for by
Croatia's making concessions."
"Citing historical events on the basis of which borders should be
changed was the reason for the bloody 'Greater Serbian' aggression,
the essence of which was the fact that former Yugoslav president
Slobodan Milosevic and Greater Serbian aggressors did not
recognise the republics' borders as state borders, but demanded new
ethnic borders," Tomac said.
President of the Liberal Party (LS), Zlatko Kramaric, told
reporters in Dubrovnik today that his party "advocates binding
international arbitration and there is no reason for us not to use
this mechanism. As far as borders are concerned, the Croatian
parliament should be the one to solve such issues".
(hina) lml sb