Croatian MFA: We expect to avoid unilateral and symbolically provocative moves

AUTHOR:M.J. GDNUS

Croatia has sent a protest note to Montenegro over the unilateral decision of the Ministry of Defense of Montenegro to produce badges with the motif of the training ship "Jadran", the country's Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs confirmed to Television E.

Such moves and messages, they add, are not in the spirit of good neighborly relations and the criteria and values of the European Union that Croatia is obliged to respect.

The training ship "Jadran" represents part of Croatian military property, it is the official position of that country. The note announced a detailed analysis of the overall military succession, according to which Montenegro owes it more than two billion US dollars.

In their response to Television E, they state that Croatia remains committed to dialogue and will continue to advocate for Montenegro's European path, but also expects to avoid unilateral and symbolically provocative moves.

The result of a series of newly opened contentious issues over the past five years between the two countries was the blocking of the opening of the negotiation chapter on foreign, security and defense policy at the end of last year.

Also, due to the adoption of the resolution on the genocide in Jasenovac, Croatia granted the status of "persona non grata" to Andrija Mandić, Aleksa Bečić and Milan Knežević.

The latest in a series of moves was made by Defense Minister Dragan Krapović, who decided that only a diplomatic representative of Montenegro would attend this year's commemoration of Operation "Storm", not a military one.