Pusic concluded her visit to Slovenia in the afternoon after attending the Bled Strategic Forum. She spoke to Croatian reporters about her bilateral meetings at the conference, including those with Slovenian Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec, Kosovo Foreign Minister Enver Hoxhaj and Montenegrin Foreign Minister Nebojsa Kaludjerovic.

Speaking of her talks with Erjavec about the Ljubljanska Banka issue, Pusic said that her feeling about it was positive although it was too early to say when the two countries' financial experts, Zdravko Rogic of Croatia and France Arhar of Slovenia, would propose a solution to the issue, which Slovenia was using as a condition for the ratification of Croatia's EU accession treaty.

Erjavec and Pusic arranged for the two financial experts to meet again in Zagreb on September 18.

When asked if she could imagine Croatia not joining the EU on July 1 next year just because of Slovenia and the Ljubljanska Banka issue, Pusic replied in the negative.

As regards her talks with Hoxhaj, Pusic said that he told her that Kosovo was preparing constitutional amendments under which the Croats living there could be granted the status of an ethnic minority and could even have their representative in the Kosovo parliament. She said that the Kosovo Croats were an important link between the two countries.

Pusic was also asked for a comment on today's meeting between Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) leader Tomislav Karamarko and the heads of counties in the Slavonia region, at which Karamarko said that the HDZ would oppose Croatia being divided into two regions. She said that such statements were damaging to the state.

Pusic said that the division of Croatia into two regions would benefit Slavonia too, and that it would be better if the heads of Slavonian counties proposed a project for irrigation of farmland in Slavonia for which she said it would be possible to get money from EU funds.