April 18, 2021 - Croatia is not running away from outstanding issues in the relations with Bosnia and Herzegovina and the redrawing of Balkan borders. Croatia wants to address them just as it sincerely wants to help preserve that country's stability and its Euro-Atlantic path, Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlić Radman said on Sunday.

In an interview for the radio Sarajevo web portal, Grlić Radman said that his visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina this week and talks with the country's highest officials took place positively and encouraging atmosphere.

"There is no doubt that Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia are economically, culturally, and geographically oriented towards each other. They are and must be friends and thus have to resolve outstanding issues through dialogue. And that is the message that we have, I believe, sent during this visit. So, more talks, fewer misunderstandings," said the Croatian minister, confirming that holding a joint session of the two countries' governments is also planned.

He said that dialogue on all outstanding issues was important but should not behold in issuing statements to the media but through joint working groups and interdepartmental formats whose members are relevant experts.

"That is, I think, especially important so that those outstanding issues would not be exploited for daily political purposes, which could lead to further escalation of mutual misunderstandings," Grlić Radman said.

He added that he had clarified in direct communication during his visit to Sarajevo the purpose and content of the non-paper on Bosnia and Herzegovina and Western Balkans that Croatia sent to the EU Foreign Affairs Council on behalf of a group of six EU member states as a template for the debate announced for May. He stressed that with the document, Croatia had shown respect and appreciation for Bosnia and Herzegovina, opened space for a deeper discussion on critical topics to increase the European Union's attention to Bosnia and Herzegovina and its path to EU candidate status.

In that context, he explained that the need to reform Bosnia and Herzegovina's election law to eliminate all existing inequalities and improve the political climate and cooperation within the country was also brought up.

Commenting on the alleged document advocating the partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina and changes to other borders in the Western Balkans, published by a Slovenian web portal without identifying the author or the intended audience, Grlić Radman said that he did not want to speculate about the alleged non-paper. Still, he underscored that border redrawing was out of the question to Croatia.

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April 17, 2021 - Croatian President Zoran Milanović on Saturday blasted an alleged document on changing the Balkan borders, saying he hoped it did not come from Slovenia.

In the past few days, the public in the region has been focusing on an alleged non-paper on changing the borders of the Balkan states and reorganizing them along ethnic lines. The media say the authors are Slovenia's highest officials, which they have denied.

"Regarding a peaceful break-up in Bosnia and Herzegovina - that's such a flippant and dangerous topic that it shouldn't be put even in a non-paper, regardless of who did that," Milanović told the press.

"Any peaceful break-up, Croatia all the way to the Drina river, Belgrade to the Una river - that's out of the question. And in that sense, that paper is a big shit," Milanović said.

Slovenian President Borut Pahor told the press on Friday that he was committed to BiH's integrity, that he was against changing the borders in the Balkans, and that he was pushing for stepping up the inclusion of all states in the region into the EU.

Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša denied sending Brussels any non-paper on that. Media close to him say such accusations are an attempt by the Slovenian opposition to compromise him before Slovenia takes over the EU presidency in July.

Milanović said he hoped the unofficial diplomatic document did not come from Ljubljana because "objectively, I respect them a lot and don't think they are that thick."

"Whether this is coming from (Janša) or not, I don't know, but I would tell the author of that to keep their fingers off Bosnia and Herzegovina," he added.

Speaking of Janša, Milanović said, "he can be an enfant terrible and something else along with that. This Janša was actually, I won't say, benevolent towards Croatia, but you could see that behind him, there was some support that was continuous in Slovenian politics, and that's why he sometimes surprised me with some of his constructive views."

Milanović dismissed the possibility of BiH breaking up and asked that Croats there were given back the fundamental constitutional rights stemming from the Dayton peace agreement, rights he said: "have been denied to them, even stolen from them."

He said, "it's a fact that nothing will come of BiH's break-up," adding that BiH Presidency chairman Milorad Dodik would not like that but that he believed Dodik too was aware of that.

Milanović said he did not believe that Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić would back the idea of Kosovo and Albania uniting.

The Slovenian web portal Necenzurirano has run the content of the non-paper, written in English and without header or signature, and it was carried by many other media in Slovenia, underlining that it was not confirmed either by the European Council or the European Commission.

The unofficial diplomatic document, entitled "Western Balkans - A Way Forward," concerns the division of BiH, the annexation of its Serb entity to Serbia, and the unification of Kosovo and Albania, the web portal said.

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