ZAGREB, April 25 (Hina) - Prime Minister Ivica Racan said on Wednesday the government had no intention of commenting on anybody's private statements, not even those of the Hague war crimes tribunal's chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte.
Racan was responding to a question by a representative of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) who asked why the government failed to react to del Ponte's claim to a Sarajevo-based newspaper that the Hague tribunal's Prosecutor's Office was preparing an indictment against Croatia's former head of state, the late Franjo Tudjman. Racan said the government would have reacted if the statement had been made in official talks with the chief prosecutor or during negotiations with the Hague tribunal. He reminded parliament's 12th session, which began today, that the government's stance was known, namely that an aggression had been waged on Croatia, that the early 1990s war o
ZAGREB, April 25 (Hina) - Prime Minister Ivica Racan said on
Wednesday the government had no intention of commenting on
anybody's private statements, not even those of the Hague war
crimes tribunal's chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte.
Racan was responding to a question by a representative of the
Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) who asked why the government failed
to react to del Ponte's claim to a Sarajevo-based newspaper that the
Hague tribunal's Prosecutor's Office was preparing an indictment
against Croatia's former head of state, the late Franjo Tudjman.
Racan said the government would have reacted if the statement had
been made in official talks with the chief prosecutor or during
negotiations with the Hague tribunal.
He reminded parliament's 12th session, which began today, that the
government's stance was known, namely that an aggression had been
waged on Croatia, that the early 1990s war of independence had been
a defence war, and that the government had no need to prove this to
its own people.
The HDZ representative, Zdenka Babic-Petricevic, said the Homeland
Defence War Declaration, which was adopted last year, bound all
Croatian officials and state bodies, the government included, to
protect the values and dignity of that war.
She called on the prime minister and the government to "stop
dissembling the Croatian state."
"I will no comment on disparaging statements and assessments.
Different assessments on the protagonists of recent Croatian
history can be heard even in Croatia and they are a constituent part
of democracy. We shall let history judge (them)," Racan said.
(hina) ha