ZAGREB, 23 April 2022 - A representative of the Croatian Civic Initiative (HGI), one of the political parties representing the Croatian minority in Montenegro, will be a minister without a portfolio in the minority government to be nominated by Prime Minister-elect Dritan Abazović on 28 April, local media said on Friday.

HGI leader Adrijan Vuksanović confirmed to the Montenegrin media that he would be the party's candidate for minister without a portfolio in the new government. Earlier, the party's main committee unanimously accepted the invitation from Prime Minister-elect Abazović to participate in the minority government.

"We consider this an important gesture that will help ensure respect for minority rights and be an important mechanism for their affirmation. This is a strong message to the international and domestic public that Montenegro is following its natural path of multi-ethnic harmony and respecting the contribution from the ethnic minorities in the social, cultural and political field," HGI said.

Ethnic Croats account for about one per cent of Montenegro's population.

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ZAGREB, 8 March 2022 - Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Gordan Grlić Radman on Tuesday spoke with the leader of the Democratic Alliance of Vojvodina Croats, Tomislav Žigmanov, and the two discussed improving the status of the Croat minority in Serbia, the Foreign and European Affairs Ministry said in a press release.

"Considering that Serbia is still not implementing the provisions of the bilateral agreement on the mutual protection of rights of the Croat minority in Serbia and the Serb minority in Croatia, the talks underscored the importance of continuing to work on improving the status of the Croat minority in Serbia," the press release said.

The two officials talked about the current social and political circumstances in Serbia, with emphasis on the ethnic Croat community and activities by its key institutions.

They underscored that Croats in Serbia still live in an unfavourable social and political climate while Grlić Radman said that Croatia would continue to actively participate in protecting their cultural and identity interests as well as take the necessary steps in that regard, both in bilateral relations but also within the relevant international organisations.

As regards the coming election in Serbia, Grlić Radman and Žigmanov agreed that it was necessary to invest joint political efforts for ethnic Croats to obtain legitimate political representatives in Serbia's political institutions.

ZAGREB, 22 Jan 2022 - Croatian Foreign and European Affairs Minister Gordan Grlić Radman on Saturday attended via video link a round table discussion on the minorities as bridges of cooperation between Croatia and Montenegro, which was held in Podgorica.

In his address to the conference, Grlić Radman said that Montenegro was on the right track to recognise its strength and values in diversities, the Croatian ministry stated in a press release.

"We have had and still have many outstanding issues concerning our cultural heritage. However, the agile work of the Croatian National Council in Montenegro, led by the council president Zvonimir Deković, in cooperation with us and Croatian institutions, finds ways to satisfy the fundamental customs to the mutual benefit of both countries," said the minister, citing examples of the ethnic Croat heritage in Montenegro such as the cult of St. Tryphon, the tradition of the Croatian fraternity Bokeljska Mornarica, and local Marian shrines and so on.

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ZAGREB, 6 Aug 2021 - Croatia's Foreign and European Affairs Minister Gordan Grlić Radman has condemned threats against the leader of the Croat Civic Initiative in Montenegro, Adrian Vuksanović. 

The threats against the leader of the Croat minority party were made in comments on the In4s portal, with some of the readers saying that Croats should have been killed or expelled from the former Yugoslavia and that Vuksanović would be "among the first to pay for it."

Grlić Radman condemned the threats in a conversation with Vuksanović and the leader of the Croat National Council, Zvonimir Deković, noting in a Twitter post that he had discussed the matter with his Montenegrin counterpart Đorđe Radulović and that minority protection was the focus of bilateral relations.

The threatening messages against Vuksanović were posted under a text in which he responded to Montenegrin Parliament Speaker Aleksa Bečić's comment on the 1995 Operation Storm, with which Croatia put an end to a four-year Serb armed insurgency, in which Bečić said "May Storm never happen again."

"You can rest assured that the military and police, liberating Operation Storm will never happen again because nobody will ever dare again to conquer Croatian territory, expel its residents and heartlessly shell towns across Croatia, including its capital, for four years," Vuksanović said in response to Bečić's comment as carried by In4s.

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