Leader of Croatian Opposition Party Vesna Pusic: U.S. Positively Assesses New Croatian Government

Washington, February 6 – Croatian Parliament vice president and leader of oppositional Croatian People’s Party Vesna Pusic visited United States to attend the traditional Prayer Breakfast in Washington and meet with U.S. officials.

Croatian parliament vice president Pusic held talks in the U.S. Department of State with director for Central and Southern Europe Charles English. In the White House, the Croatian official meet the director for Southeast Europe in the National Security Council, Lisa Tepper, and the advisor for Iraq and former U.S. Ambassador to Croatia, Lawrence Rossin.

The United States has positively assessed the political standpoints of the new Croatian government, but expects concrete results in the return of Serb refugees and the restitution of their property, as well as in cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), said Vesna Pusic after the meetings.

The talks with the U.S. officials focused on Croatia's strategy to join NATO and the European Union and moves the Croatian government should make on that path, said Pusic. Pusic added that the talks also focused on the return of Serb refugees and the restitution of their property, cooperation with the ICTY and regional cooperation. She said the U.S. officials had stressed that Croatia's legal procedure for the restitution of property was "too complicated and too long" and that concrete results must be achieved on that front and the process of the restitution of Serb property accelerated.

Regarding the cooperation with the ICTY, Pusic said the main issue was the solving of the case of General Ante Gotovina, which had become the acid test of Croatia's readiness to cooperate with the tribunal. She stressed the United States did not directly make its support to Croatia's joining NATO and the EU conditional on the solving of the Gotovina case. The U.S. officials said that on its path to NATO Croatia could expect similar treatment as the Baltic countries.

Pusic said the U.S. officials supported the idea of training Croatia's judiciary for processing war crimes on its own. "However, we most definitely will not be able to accomplish that until the Gotovina case is solved," she said.

She said the talks only briefly tackled the deployment of Croatian soldiers to Iraq, adding that the position of the U.S. was that the final decision on the matter laid with Croatia.

Commenting on cooperation in the region, Pusic said the U.S. officials stressed support to Croatia's efforts to join NATO and the EU must not be made conditional on regional cooperation.