Croatian President has concluded her participation in the Munich Security Conference.
Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović met on Sunday in Munich with influential US Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham. The meeting took place during the Munich Security Conference, reports N1 on February 19, 2017.
“I have talked with Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham about stability and Euro-Atlantic perspective of Southeast Europe, and about the cooperation between Croatia and the United States”, wrote Grabar-Kitarović on her Twitter account. In the last few weeks, John McCain and Lindsey Graham have become some of the fiercest critics of US President Donald Trump in the US Senate. After Trump’s recent attack on the media, McCain said that suppression of freedom of the media is how dictators get started.
"Today I also met with US congressmen who are here. I spoke with them last night as well, and also with a number of other speakers. Today, I had a thorough discussion with Senators McCain, Graham and others about the situation in Southeast Europe and relations between Croatia and the United States, how to improve them further, but above all how to maintain peace and stability in our neighbourhood”, said the President.
The President also spoke about the issue of the oil refinery in Bosanski Brod, which was a topic of her yesterday’s meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. “Croatia has decided to allow connection to the gas network, in order to address this issue, and Mr. Lavrov has assured me that the Russian owners of the refinery are working to continue to improve the technology and everything else which can be improved at this time, in order to prevent air pollution. They said they were aware of the problem and really wanted to solve it as soon as possible”, said the President.
Asked about a meeting with the Trump administration representatives which eventually did not happen, the President said that she would have liked to be able to sit down and talk more with the American representatives. “I absolutely understand that, at this point, as you can see by the schedule of the conference, there are other countries, other issues and priorities and that the time was limited, for both Vice President Pence and for me”, said the President. She met briefly with Vice President Pence on Saturday.
She said that she was satisfied with the conference in Munich. “First of all, the reactions to my speech on the situation in Southeast Europe were great, which means that we have succeed in focusing the attention to the situation in the area of Southeast Europe. And you could see, there are more and more people who use that term ‘Southeast Europe’, and not ‘the Balkans’”, said Grabar-Kitarović. “Croatia is positioned here as a truly active factor which wants to participate in the resolution of outstanding issues, especially in our neighbourhood, but also in a very strong linking of the two sides of the Atlantic in our transatlantic partnership”, said the President.
