Speaking on Croatian Radio, Mesic voiced confidence in a bilateral settlement of the issue of compensation to Italians who left the former Yugoslavia and opted to stay in Italy at the end of WWII.
Mesic underlined the need for a bilateral meeting with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano and for a tripartite meeting between them and Slovene President Janez Drnovsek. He added that the date of the meeting with Napolitano had not been set yet.
Mesic said he was not worried about the statement in which the European Commission condemned his reaction to Napolitano's claims but did not comment on the claims, given that the statement had come "from the Commission's deputy spokesperson".
"Obviously someone who wanted to send a message did not want to implicate the top of the Commission. If someone from the Commission's top had said that, there would be reason for concern. They did not want to interfere in the dispute. We will solve it ourselves and I believe that we have already solved it in great part," said Mesic.
Asked to comment on the fact that Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and his Cabinet had backed his reactions to Napolitano's claims only after a couple of days, Mesic said it was true that the support had come "somewhat later", but added that during the entire dispute the President's Office, the Foreign Ministry and the Embassy in Rome had constantly been in touch.
Speaking of another subject, the president underlined the need for state bodies to step up the prosecution of war profiteers, saying he had seen numerous "papers" with multimillion figures deposited for the early 1990s defence of Croatia, but added that nobody had found out where the money had ended up.
Mesic said one of those responsible for receiving those papers had been retired general Vladimir Zagorec, a former assistant defence minister suspected of embezzling funds intended for Croatia's defence.
Mesic said he could not understand how Zagorec "can be the most decorated Croatian soldier. This remains a big enigma for me". He added that Zagorec could be stripped of his decorations if it was established that he had acted against state interests.
The president reiterated that a team of experts were investigating how much money had been deposited for Croatia's defence and where it had ended up, and that he would be able to say more once they officially notified him of their findings.
"What I know is that the money was deposited into many accounts, that it was paid out into even more accounts, into private accounts, even those of public figures in Croatia," the president said.