SLOVENIA FIRM ON MAINTAINING ICTY CONDITIONALITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L LJUBLJANA 001080 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/30/2014 TAGS: KAWC PREL PGOV ICTY SUBJECT: SLOVENIA FIRM ON MAINTAINING ICTY CONDITIONALITY ON CROATIA REF: STATE 254097 Classified By: Ambassador Thomas B. Robertson, Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (C) Pol/Econ Chief delivered reftel points to the Head of the Western Balkans Department at the MFA, Peter Reberc. Reberc is recently returned from eight years in Rome first at the Slovene Mission to the Holy See and then the bilateral Mission. He explained that the Government of Slovenia is very concerned about the poor precedent that would be set in the region if Croatia were not held firmly to the ICTY conditionality prior to opening negotiations with the EU. It was his personal view that once negotiations opened, a great deal of leverage on the ICTY issue would be lost. Reberc pledged to share the U.S. view on this issue with State Secretary Logar at tomorrow morning's CORPRER preparatory SIPDIS meeting. ¶2. (C) On Slovenia-Croatia relations in general, Reberc says that he has been fighting an uphill battle in his two months on the job. He hopes that with the return of Dimitrij Rupel to the Foreign Ministry, he will be able to weed out the emotional "public psychosis" from the real political issues with Croatia. In his view, Slovenia should be presenting a more positive, forward-looking face to Croatia than has been the recent case. ROBERTSON NNNN