A member of parliament and former Defence Minister, Zeljka Antunovic of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), on Friday declined to give a concrete answer if she had negotiated with the United States the delivery of the S-300 missile system at the time she was at the helm of the Defence Ministry, saying only that she was building good relations with countries partners in security and defence and that she was protecting Croatia's national interests.
The media on Friday published notes recently released by the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks according to which in 2003 the Unites States was interested in procuring the Russian missile system from the Croatian Defence Ministry which Croatia obtained in 1995, so that the U.S. Air Force could test new generations of combat aircraft.
According to the notes, allegedly made by the then U.S. Ambassador to Croatia, Ralph Frank, Antunovic was closely cooperating with the U.S. military attache in Zagreb so that Washington could get the missile system.
"I was the defence minister, I was building good relations with countries partners in the field of security and defence and I was protecting Croatia's national interest," Antunovic told reporters in parliament, asked if the media headlines were correct. She added that some media headlines were incorrect.
"The system had been illegally procured, which the entire country knows, and it represented a great problems for Croatia and its government," Antunovic said, adding that when she became the minister she saw attempts aimed at "illegal manipulation" of those weapons.
"I protected the weapons and I protected Croatia's crucial interests until the end of my mandate," Antunovic said adding that she had no knowledge about what happened with the contentious missile system after the change of the government.
"You have to ask the incumbent government what happened with the weapons. Had the SDP-led government sold the missile system, the public would have known whom it was sold to, it would most definitely not have been done illegally. This way we don't know where the weapons ended up at," Antunovic said.
