The Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration said in a statement on Friday it had no official confirmation that a Croatian citizen had been arrested in northern Iraq.
The statement was prompted by media reports saying that 17 people from countries of the former Yugoslavia, including a Croat, had been arrested in the Kurdish city of Arbil in northern Iraq.
"Our ambassador in Baghdad, Jerko Vukas, has received no information from the Iraqi authorities about the arrest of a Croatian citizen, and no request for consular assistance has been made," ministry spokesman Berislav Zivkovic said.
Zivkovic said that the ambassador would ask the Iraqi authorities for detailed information about the alleged arrests in Arbil.
According to reports by media in the region, five Serbs, 11 Bosniaks and a Croat have been taken prison. One of them, Elvis Ramic of Blatnica near Teslic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, reportedly appealed for help on his Facebook profile. Ramic said that they had found themselves in Iraq through the agency of a German firm whose owner had disappeared.
