Croatia's First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign and European Affairs Minister Vesna Pusic on Friday met her Serbian counterpart Ivan Mrkic on the margins of a ministerial meeting of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Dublin, and on that occasion the two ministers described their meeting as a first step towards a possible meeting of the Croatian and the Serbian Prime Ministers, Zoran Milanovic and Ivica Dacic, in the near future, the Office of the Croatian foreign ministry's spokesperson said in a press release.
Pusic was quoted as saying that no concrete date for such a meeting had been discussed.
The press release quoted the Serbian minister as saying that the two countries should take into account what could make them closer. He also urged Serbia and Croatia to "develop the best possible relations having in mind the interest of upcoming generations".
According to the press release, Mrkic announced that he might visit Zagreb.
As for the decision by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to clear Generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac of war crimes, Pusic said that Croatia had fully respected the institutional procedure, which was a precondition of the country's progress towards European Union membership.
"Gotovina and Markac are innocent and they are not responsible for war crimes. This, however, does not mean that there were no war crimes or that there are no people responsible for them," Pusic said.
She reiterated that if anyone was dissatisfied with the performance of the UN tribunal in The Hague, they should refer their objections to the UN Security Council, the founder of the tribunal, or to the tribunal and not to Croatia.
