Time for Balkan leaders to thrash out differences

˝I urge the leaders of the former Yugoslav states to sit all together and start talking,˝ Ivo Josipovic said on a visit to Slovenia.

BRDO PRI KRANJU, March 12, 2010 (AFP) - Croatia's president said on Friday it was time for leaders of the old Yugoslav states to thrash out the differences which have dogged ties since the collapse of the former federation.

"I urge the leaders of the former Yugoslav states to sit all together and start talking," Ivo Josipovic said on a visit to Slovenia.

"Without that there will be no solution for the problems," he added at a joint press conference with his Slovenian counterpart Danilo Turk.

Josipovic added the current leaders of the region "do not have the right to leave unsolved problems to the next generation."

The Croation president arrived Friday in Slovenia on his first official visit to a country from the region since he was inaugurated in February.

The visit takes place a week ahead of an EU-Balkans summit jointly organised by current EU member Slovenia and Croatia, that hopes to join the bloc by 2012, designed to speed up the EU integration of all the states from the Balkans.

Slovenian Prime Minister Borut Pahor admitted on Thursday one of the main goals of the conference, to bring behind the same table the leaders of Serbia and its former southern province Kosovo, appeared to be "a mission impossible".

Serbia boycotts all international meetings where Pristina's leaders are invited as state representatives and attends only those at which the Kosovo officials are present under the United Nations' administration (UNMIK) flag.

But Kosovo's Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said on Monday he would attend the summit in Slovenia only as a representative of an independent nation.

Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia in February 2008 in a move that has been recognised by the vast majority of EU states.