The meeting will take place during the Three Seas Initiative summit in Warsaw.
US President Donald Trump will meet with his Croatian counterpart Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović during the summit of the Three Sea Initiative (Adriatic-Baltic-Black Sea) which will be held in Warsaw on 6 July, the day before the two-day G20 summit, reports Jutarnji List on 30 June 2017.
Among the topics of the meeting, which is expected to last for half an hour, will be yesterday’s decision of the arbitration tribunal regarding the border dispute between Croatia and Slovenia, which Croatia does not intent to accept or implement.
“President Trump will have talks in Poland with 12 leaders of the Three Seas Initiative member states,” confirmed a White House official to US journalists, adding that the topics will be co-operation within the NATO alliance and the security situation in Europe. The Three Seas Initiative includes 12 countries, and Croatia is one of them.
Subsequently, Trump’s national security adviser General H.R. McMaster confirmed the meeting between Trump and Grabar-Kitarović during the summit. “In Poland, the President will meet with President Duda, the leader of a staunch NATO ally and of a nation that remains one of America’s closest friends. He will speak to 12 Central European, Baltic, and Western Balkan leaders at the Three Seas Conference. His remarks will focus on infrastructure development and energy security, highlighting, for instance, the first shipments of American LNG into Poland earlier this month. He will also meet with Croatian President Grabar-Kitarović who is the co-host of the Three Seas Conference,” said McMaster.
“Travelling to Europe, especially to Central Europe, which had its identity forcibly submerged for so long, is a great way to demonstrate what binds us together not just as an alliance, but as people. America has been influenced by many nations, but we share Europe’s commitment to liberty and rule of law in particular”, said General McMaster.
Commenting on the arbitration decision, the US Embassy in Zagreb announced, in a statement published shortly after the end of the reading of the decision, that the United States would not take sides in the border dispute between Croatia and Slovenia, but suggested that the US believed both governments should resolve this bilateral issue.
“We are aware of the decision issued by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) on the instruction of the Arbitral Tribunal in the arbitration between the Republic of Croatia and the Republic of Slovenia. We have made clear to both Slovenia and Croatia that we are not taking sides in this dispute. It is up to the governments of these two countries, both EU members and NATO allies, to resolve this bilateral issue, and we are confident they can do so. We urge both sides to work expeditiously for a resolution,” said the statement.
