"The Osimo Accords demanded great sacrifice from the Slovenes. The disputed territory populated by Croats was given to Croatia as a constituent member of the Yugoslav Federation, while Slovenes in Trieste, Gorizia, and Udine remained in Italy," Rupel said in his speech on Wednesday at the event organised by the Slovene Academy of Arts and Sciences on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the conclusion of the treaty.
Rupel thus supported a theory which some Slovene politicians often promote claiming that Croats owed a moral debt to the Slovenes because some of the Slovenes were left outside Yugoslavia, while the agreement made it possible for Croats to be homogenised on their territory within the Yugoslav federation.
Those politicians believe that the present-day Republic of Croatia should 'compensate' Slovenia through some concessions on land and at sea.
Rupel, however, did not mention this possibility.
On the other hand, while it was within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, (SFRY), Slovenia was given a part of the coast which was under Italian rule until the end of the Second World War Two.
Italians who lived together with Slovenes in those areas, such as the towns of Piran, Izola, Portoroz and Koper, mainly moved from there to areas around Trieste in the wake of WW II.
Slightly less than 3,000 ethnic Italians now live in Slovenia.
Rupel noted that the Ossimo Accords were adopted only a few months after the Helsinki document, which underlined the unchangeability of borders in Europe.
The Ossimo agreement helped warm relations between the then two opposing blocs, and today it could be regarded as a book of rules on maintaining friendly relations with Italy, the Slovene minister said.