Yesterday, the Croatian government rejected allegations of an attempt to influence Slovenian media, and the Croatian intelligence service rejected accusations of wiretapping Slovenian arbitrators.
"We most resolutely and completely reject all allegations of any attempt by the Croatian government to influence the Slovenian media", the government stated regarding the claims of the Slovenian media that the first man of Austrian Styria in Croatia, Ivan Tolj, presenting himself as an intermediary of the Croatian government, tried to prevent the Slovenian media to publish a report on the alleged activities of the Croatian intelligence service in that country.
The Security and Intelligence Agency (SOA) reacted to the accusations from Slovenia, which in its response to the media assessed that they were "inaccurate and tendentious constructions". "This is a continuation of the media campaign of certain media in BiH, which wants to compromise the SOA and the Republic of Croatia with false accusations about the recruitment of Salafis for arms smuggling in BiH and the illegal activities of the SOA against neighboring countries." For more than a month, BiH and Croatia have been rocked by an affair related to the attempt by diplomats and intelligence officers from Croatia to recruit members of the Salafi movement from BiH to smuggle weapons and explosives, in order to confirm the accusations of Croatian President Kolinda Grabar Kitarović that BiH is a "hotbed of terrorism".
This case also shook the relations between Croatia and Slovenia after it was learned that some Croatian intelligence officers tried to recruit BiH citizens for arms smuggling in Slovenia as well. The Prime Minister of Slovenia, Marjan Šarec, called an emergency meeting of the Council for National Security for yesterday afternoon due to allegations about the activities of Croatian intelligence officers. It was announced that the Croatian ambassador in Ljubljana will be invited to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Slovenian ambassador in Zagreb for consultations in Ljubljana.
Šarec previously stated that he was concerned about Croatia's behavior because the SOA allegedly eavesdropped on the former Slovenian arbitrator in the border arbitration proceedings, Jernej Sekolec, and the Slovenian official, Simona Drenik, in order to discredit the arbitration process.
The story further escalated after POP-TV announced yesterday that Ivan Tolj tried to stop the broadcast of the report on wiretapping.
Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović's cabinet assessed that the collapse of the arbitration on the Croatian-Slovenian border was a judicial scandal, not an intelligence issue.
"We reject this attempt to replace theses," they told reporters in the cabinet regarding Slovenia's allegations about the activities of the Croatian intelligence service in that country.
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