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On his first visit to Slovenia last week, Ivo Josipovic, Croatia's new president, has urged the leaders of the former Yugoslav countries to start talking and working out the differences that have caused problems since the split of the former state.

 

He said "I urge the leaders of the former Yugoslav states to sit all together and start talking," and added "Without that there will be no solution for the problems," at a joint press conference with the Slovenian president, Danilo Turk.

 

In an interesting angle on the topic, he also said that the current leaders "do not have the right to leave unsolved problems to the next generation."

 

But his comments come just before an EU - Balkan Summit which has been organised by Slovenia (already an EU member) and Croatia (currently in EU accession talks). Croatia would like to join the EU by 2012 and is hoping that the summit will accelerate the process which has gone on for many years so far.

 

Slovenia on the other hand seems more interested in creating an historic event - Slovenian Prime Minister Borut Pahor said that he wanted to bring the leaders of Serbia and its former province, Kosovo, along with leaders of the other formar Yugoslav states, together round a table. Kosovo declared it's independance in 2008 from Serbia and this is something that most EU states now accept and recognise. Serbia however, boycotts all international meetings unless Kosovo officials are present under the United Nations' (UNMIK) flag and Kosovo's leader has said that he would only attend the summit in Slovenia if his country was represented as an independent nation.

 

 

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