She spoke of the role of women in Croatia and the world, gender inequality and her own experience on the road to success.
Women are still a minority in leadership positions in every country, in some countries there is more progress, in some less, and some have returned to fundamentalist principles which turn women into slaves, and it is our joint responsibility to change that, the president said.
She visited Minnesota on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of its cooperation with Croatia, notably the cooperation between the Minnesota National Guard and the Croatian Army.
On Monday, Grabar-Kitarovic and Croatian Army Chief of Staff General Drago Lovric visited the biggest army camp in Minnesota, Ripley, which the hosts used to demonstrate to the Croatian delegation a model for the development of the Croatian military camp Slunj, a project in which both Croatia and the United States are interested.
Grabar-Kitarovic said this visit was very important to her. This year we are marking 20 years of partnership between Minnesota and Croatia, and we will continue to cooperate, she said, adding that this cooperation was crowned not just with Croatia's NATO accession but joint participation in operations in Afghanistan.
She said it was very important to her to see the US plans for the Slunj military range. They are very concrete, absolutely sticking to deadlines and we can use their know how and their expertise in building the range, she said, adding that she hoped that a lot of the experience would be transferred to the Croatian military.
Lovric told HRT he wanted Slunj to be the most modern military range in Europe. "We believe that over the next ten years we can fully develop the Slunj range. This year we will draw up all the plans and next year significant investments will be made through certain exercises."
He said US budgetary funds would be invested in the range through joint exercises with the Americans. "We will use US capabilities and finances and our budget to develop the Slunj range into the most modern one in Europe."