Commenting on Italian media reports and statements by Italian politicians that his recent interview with Italian television had caused tension between the two countries, describing it as "a speech from the worst phase of the Communist regime", Mesic reiterated that Partisans had committed crimes against Italians after the war in retaliation for the crimes committed by the Italian fascist army that tried to Italianise Istria before and after World War II.
Mesic said that relations between Croatia and Italy had not been shaken because there had been no official response from Italy to his statements.
The Croatian president described as nonsense the statement by the State Secretary of the Slovene Foreign Ministry, Andrej Ster, that "the sea border between Croatia and Slovenia is not defined because the republics of the former Yugoslavia did not have borders." "It's the same as if Croatia demanded access to the Austrian border," Mesic said.
Mesic recalled that Croatia had proposed several times that a joint commission should be established to demarcate the land border between Croatia and Slovenia, on the basis of which the sea border between the two countries would be determined "with mathematical precision," but stressed that Slovenia had rejected the proposal. He said that a solution could also be sought before international courts in The Hague or Hamburg.
Mesic said that he had discussed relations with Slovenia with Prime Minister Ivo Sanader today and that he supported the government's protest note to Slovenia.
Their talks also focused on a set of defence laws that should be aligned with NATO standards and agreement was reached that a completely new Defence Act should be formulated rather than make large-scale amendments as previously planned.
The President and the Prime Minister also discussed the functioning of the intelligence community in the light of the recent dismissal of the head of the government's Office for Non-governmental Organisations, Jadranka Cigelj.
Mesic reiterated that Cigelj had the right to request a background check for a candidate for membership in the Council for the Development of Civil Society, Sandra Bencic, but that she should have asked for her permission first.
Asked about the course of an investigation into secret bank accounts abroad into which funds intended for the defence of the country had been transferred in the early 1990s, Mesic said that the State Attorney's Office was working on it.
The President said that financial experts had visited Austria to investigate how six million kuna had "vanished" from the Brodosplit shipyard. Their report clearly shows that there are reasonable grounds to suspect that those were unlawful dealings, he said.
Asked if "an inflation of political scandals" in recent times was related to electioneering, Mesic said that political parties would have to give up such an approach if they wanted to succeed in the elections and that they would have to propose a way out of the present situation through job creation and by increasing production and exports.