After he was received for talks by Croatian President Stjepan Mesic in Zagreb on Thursday, Vidas told a news conference that the issue of Slovenia's contact with the high seas could be interpreted in two ways.
If contact with the high seas is interpreted as the issue of waterways, it was regulated in 2004 by the International Maritime Organisation at the proposal of Slovenia, Croatia and Italy.
Ships sailing in the high seas towards Slovenia pass through Croatia's territorial waters, and then along the Slovene coast towards the Slovene port of Koper, and they leave through the Italian territorial waters.
This means that if contact with the high seas is interpreted as the issue of waterways, Italy should be engaged in the negotiations, Vidas said, explaining that in that case, it would be a trilateral issue.
If contact with the high seas is seen as a territorial issue and physical contact with the high seas, one should be aware of a very important circumstance - the size of territorial waters, Vidas said, adding that a country's size of territorial waters could not be larger than 12 nautical miles (approx. 20 kilometres).
He said that insisting on contact with the high seas as a territorial issue meant Slovenia's insistence on having territorial waters of more than 12 nautical miles, which would cause a dispute with the entire international community and not only Croatia.
It took more than four centuries for countries of the world to agree on the convention on the law of the sea, and Croatia, even if it wanted to, cannot allow Slovenia to have more than 12 miles of territorial waters, nor can a court of law or arbitration do it, Vidas said, adding that the problem of the sea border demarcation could be tackled only by the International Court of Justice.