The Croatian Prime Minister invited Milanović to stand in front of the media and explain the situation and the nature of the meeting.
Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said on Friday that the Ministry of the Interior is not a “gossip girl” who would inform him about the meeting between Milorad Dodik and President Zoran Milanović on Hvar, that there are other, usual channels for such information, such as diplomatic notes, and that the bigger problem is in the fact that the Croatian public was not informed about the meeting either.
On Tuesday, Milanović’s office announced in a short statement that the president met with the president of the Bosnian entity Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik on Hvar.
Two days later, Plenković called Milanović to explain the “very unusual situation” where a foreign leader arrives without a diplomatic note, after which the president announced that he had informed the Ministry of the Interior (MUP) about it.
On Friday, the Prime Minister said that Milanović was speaking from the perspective of his “management model”, where the Prime Minister of the country is informed about everything that reaches the MUP departments.
“If it was like that in his time in the MUP, DORH, security and intelligence services, maybe it’s like that, but in our government it doesn’t work that way,” said Plenković, saying that the ministry is not “grandmother’s gossip”. , Hina reported.
Plenković said that there are other, “usual” ways of communicating the arrival of foreign leaders – they are publicly announced and other authorities, such as the Parliament or the president’s office, are informed in case they also want to meet.
A diplomatic note was also missing
This was the case, for example, during the recent visit of Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob and Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, the Prime Minister said.
In the case of Dodik’s earlier visits, the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina would also send a note in which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was informed of the details of his visit and the route, Plenković pointed out.
“It’s normal communication, and here such a note was missing,” he emphasized.
The prime minister said that he was more interested in why Milanović’s office did not inform the public about Dodik’s arrival in advance.
“What’s the secret? What kind of secret conversations are these and what is the nature of the meeting that I found out about so that we saw Mr. President of Serbia Vučić laughing?” Plenković said, adding that the only thing that mattered to the Serbian president was that the flight to Hvar was by MUP helicopter. and Serbia.
Plenković therefore invited Milanović to “stand in front of the media” and explain the situation and the nature of the meeting.
Source : AL JAZEERA
