"So far, those who have had greater political power decided who would be employed with the Foreign Ministry. Now a reform should be carried out to establish... who will represent Croatia, where and how," Mesic said in the interview headlined "Diplomacy Needs to be Aired in 2007".
Mesic, whose presidential powers include participation in the shaping of foreign policy, urged establishing which diplomatic posts would be filled by politicians.
"Those are Moscow, Berlin, Vienna, Washington, Paris and Brussels. Those are the posts where the will of the election winners should make itself felt. All the other posts should be filled by career diplomats," Mesic said.
Commenting on a recent drug scandal in the Croatian Consulate in Los Angeles, Mesic said that the head of the Security-Intelligence Service, Tomislav Karamarko, reported to him about the Barisic case and claimed that nobody had requested a security check-up for Bozica Barisic and her husband in Los Angeles. "So, there is a department in the Foreign Ministry which should have requested a check-up, but did not do it," Mesic said.
"Those services obviously need to be aired," he added.
The Croatian media have reported that in early 2005 the US police arrested the husband of Bozica Barisic, an employee with the Croatian Consulate in Los Angeles, while he was buying drugs in a car with diplomatic registration plates.
Barisic continued working for the Consulate and her husband kept a diplomatic passport for a year and a half after the incident, although he was sentenced on probation by the US judiciary.