It has been made clear to both Slovenia and Croatia that the US is not taking any sides. This bilateral issue must be solved by the governments of the two countries which are members of the EU and NATO, and we are confident that they can do it, the State Department said in a press release carried by STA.
The US Embassy in Croatia said some ten days ago that the border dispute between Croatia and Slovenia was a bilateral issue and called on the two countries to reach an agreement on the best way to solve it, which Croatian media have interpreted as a sign of support to Croatia because unlike Slovenia, it is not insisting on continuing arbitration proceedings that have been compromised by a scandal that broke out recently when a Zagreb daily published transcripts revealing that the Slovenian judge sitting on the arbitration tribunal deciding about the Croatian-Slovenian border dispute and a Slovenian Foreign Ministry official had secretly discussed the case and lobbied other judges to influence the outcome of the arbitration in Slovenia's favour.
Former Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel told Slovenian Television that in light of the scandal, Slovenia should work more on its relations with the USA, which he said the incumbent government had neglected. He also noted that a recent visit to Slovenia by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who attended there a commemoration for Russian World War I prisoners of war at which he said that the EU's sanctions against Russia were unfair and would not achieve their goal, had not helped Slovenia either.
Some other Slovenian commentators, too, believe that the demonstration of the Russian-Slovenian historical friendship has weakened Slovenia's position in the EU, with former prime minister and opposition leader Janez Drnovsek being especially vocal in his criticism of Ljubljana's alleged giving in to Russian President Vladimir Putin's imperialist policy.
The Slovenian government will decide on its new arbitrator on the arbitration tribunal on Thursday, after consultations between Prime Minister Miro Cerar and leaders of all parliamentary parties. The Slovenian government insists that the arbitration process is alive even after Croatia launched a procedure to walk out of the arbitration deal between the two countries and that that process is the only way to solve the border dispute.
Rupel described as a diplomatic mistake Cerar's reply to Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic, in which he declined Milanovic's offer to hold a meeting so as to look for new ways to solve the border dispute.