Eurasia Press & News
Croatia has slammed a map published by Slovenia’s Environmental Protection Agency that shows the contested Piran Bay area claimed by both countries as belonging to Slovenia.
The Croatian Foreign Affairs and the European Integration Ministry said that the map published on the website of the agency, a part of the Slovene Ministry for Environment, was “not decent and legally non-founded.”
“As it is especially visible near the charted border at sea, it is contrary to international law, something the Croatian side has previously pointed out several times and protested against,” the ministry`s press release reads, HINA news agency reports.
“Such indecently presented border at the sea and determined points at land clearly shows …that the real way to solve this open issue was to take it to the International Court in The Hague, in accordance with the agreement of the Croatian and Slovenian PMs from Bled, which took place in August 2007,” the announcement concludes.
Croatian President Stjepan Mesic said Croatia did not raise the unsolved territorial issue when Slovenia was accessing the European Union, because Croatia`s goal was for Slovenia to join as soon as possible.
“If open sea would reach Slovenia, they we lose our border with Italy, and we need that border because we need to remain a country which borders with Italy,” Mesic said. “And then they have fabricated an isolated triangle at sea which would be Croatia. However, you cannot take a triangle or a quadrangle at an ocean and say it belongs to some other country and now, it is extra territorial. This cannot be solved like this at sea, because the border must be connected with the land and this was a defect of that proposal.”
