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Israel cancels Croatian visit

Updated: 03/Nov/2005 16:40

Croatian far-right leader Anto Djapic

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Israel has cancelled a planned visit by the Croatian far-right leader Anto Djapic who spoke lightly of violence and crimes committed by the Balkan country’s Nazi-allied WWII regime, a report said Wednesday.

"The chief of a party with a political program based on almost pro-fascist principles is not welcome in my city," Ron Nachman, mayor of the Israeli municipality of Ariel, was quoted as telling Croatian weekly Globus.

Nachman said he had accepted the visit before he found out about the background of Anto Djapic, the leader of the ultra-nationalist Croatian Party of Rights (HSP).

Notorious leader

During the 1990s, Djapic used iconography and the salute of the former Yugoslav republic’s WWII Ustacha regime, and kept pictures of its leader, Ante Pavelic.

An estimated 75 per cent of Croatia’s 40,000 Jews were killed by the Ustacha regime. Many of them died in Jasenovac, a 1941-1944 concentration camp some 100 kilometres southeast of Zagreb.

"I only know that I cannot accept changing of political stances, because their real change is impossible in my opinion," Nachman told the weekly.

Djapic said last month he would visit Israel in order to pay tribute to
Holocaust victims in his capacity as mayor of the northeastern town of Osijek. He said the move was a part of his bid to try to change the image of his party.

The party’s political advisor, former foreign minister Mate Granic, told
Globus that diplomatic contacts with Israel were still ongoing and voiced hope the visit could still take place.

Strained relations

Relations between the two countries had been seriously strained during the 1990s rule of late nationalist president Franjo Tudjman, who also played down Croatia’s wartime role in massacring Jews.

Earlier this year, Israel’s first ambassador to Croatia, Shmuel Meirom, made an inaugural visit to the Balkan country before the opening of the embassy in Zagreb.

Prime Minister Ivo Sanader visited Israel in June in a further sign of strengthening relations between the two countries.

Ties had improved since centrist Stipe Mesic succeded Tudjman in 2000.

Today, around 1,700 Jews live in Croatia.