Reconciliation for Croatia, Slovenia, Italy?

We have to admit the mistakes that all sides did, said Mesic in an interview for `Il Piccolo´ that will be published on Saturday.

Croatia would be for an official reconciliation between Italy, Croatia and Slovenia concerning the horrors committed in Istria during World War II, said the Croatian president Stjepan Mesic in an interview for the Trieste newspaper “Il Piccolo”, reports the Italian agency Ansa on Friday.

Mesic said for the daily Il Piccolo that he endorses the act that would give honour to innocent victims on all sides, under the condition that Fascism is not raised to the level of those who were fighting against it.

“We have to admit the mistakes that all sides made in order to avoid turning to those that want a revision of history six decades after World War II, with which they destroy a unique chance (for reconciliation)” added the Croatian president.

Mesic’s words set the path towards the renewal of diplomatic relations in order to found a joint memorial ceremony that would be held in Trieste, which would be attended by the presidents of all three nations.

Plans for such a ceremony failed last February because of a dispute concerning the massacre in Fojbami, the Istrian pits, in which Yugoslav Partizans threw Italians at the end of World War II.

In February, the Italian president Giorgio Napolitano said in a speech for the remembrance of the massacre, that they were the consequence of the bloodthirsty Slavic hatred and plan of annex that ruled over the 1947 peace process that gained bad connotations of ethnic cleansing.

Mesic reacted with a statement that Napolitano’s words were full of open racism, historical revisionism and political revenge.

According to the claims of the Ansa agency, the communists tortured and killed 15,000 Italians in Istria.