The Ministry said that earlier today the Croatian Embassy in London contacted the Financial Times editorial board and delivered a denial of allegations in said article.
The editorial board apologised for publishing the untrue allegations and pledged it will withdraw the article, said the statement.
The Croatian denial said the article contained misinformation and arbitrary interpretations of an interview with Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and other Croatian officials.
That is very damaging to both the credibility of the Croatian government and of the chief prosecutor of the Hague tribunal, with which the government had been closely cooperating, read the denial.
It is widely known that Gotovina was arrested after a very complex joint police and intelligence operation which involved the intelligence services of several countries, read the letter to the Financial Times, underlining that video footage of the arrest clearly showed it had not been the result of any secret negotiations.
According to the Ministry, the Croatian Embassy also refuted a part of the article which suggested that Sanader had asked the international community not to isolate Belgrade because elements of the army and the secret police continued to support fugitive war crimes indictee Ratko Mladic.
The denial said nobody wanted to isolate Belgrade and that Sanader had never felt that parts of Serbia's army and secret police should be absolved of responsibility for supporting Mladic.
In democratic countries the army and secret services serve only the government, the Croatian letter said, adding that Mladic must be arrested and brought to justice, and that Serbia would benefit from that.