THE HAGUE, Oct 1 (Hina) - Croatian President Stjepan Mesic said on Tuesday in his testimony against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic before the Hague-based U.N. war crimes tribunal that his predecessor Franjo Tudjman had
believed in an integral Bosnia-Herzegovina until his meeting with Milosevic in Karadjordjevo in March 1991.
THE HAGUE, Oct 1 (Hina) - Croatian President Stjepan Mesic said on
Tuesday in his testimony against former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic before the Hague-based U.N. war crimes tribunal
that his predecessor Franjo Tudjman had believed in an integral
Bosnia-Herzegovina until his meeting with Milosevic in
Karadjordjevo in March 1991. #L#
"Obviously Milosevic convinced him that Bosnia could be divided,"
Mesic said.
Croatia's head of state said he had initiated the Mesic-Tudjman-
Jovic-Milosevic meeting because he had believed that Croatia's
problems could be solved that way.
He said he had proposed organising the meeting to the then Serb
representative in the Yugoslav presidency, Borisav Jovic.
"Jovic told me that Serbia was not interested in Croatia or Serbs in
Croatia, but in 66 percent of Bosnia-Herzegovina," Mesic said.
"That is Serbian and will remain Serbian," Mesic quoted Jovic as
saying at the time. President Mesic said he had told Jovic that
Croatia's problem should be solved through talks, while the issue
of Bosnia-Herzegovina should be dealt with by the UN.
Both Milosevic and Tudjman agreed that such a meeting should be
held, Mesic said and added that after a while Tudjman informed him
that he was going to Karadjordjevo to meet Milosevic eye to eye.
"The two of them held a meeting. I can't say with certainty what they
had talked about, but I am certain about what Tudjman told us,"
Mesic said. He added that Tudjman said after the meeting that
Milosevic had offered Croatia the Banovina border, i.e. the region
of so-called Turkish Croatia.
Mesic stressed that until the meeting in Karadjordjevo in March
1991, Tudjman had advocated an integral Bosnia.
Milosevic, who watched Mesic's testimony about Karadjordjevo with
an expressionless face, laughed ironically when Mesic said that
Milosevic had always denied that talks on Bosnia's division had
ever taken place.
"The situation in the field showed that (the talks) had indeed been
conducted," Mesic said, reminding about the subsequent
establishment of Republika Srpska and Herceg-Bosna.
Speaking about conflicts within the Yugoslav presidency, Mesic
said that the supreme command had been established illegally and
that the state presidency, which eventually consisted only of the
Serbian bloc, had tried to carry out a coup by taking over all
powers.
(hina) it