ZAGREB (AFP)---Israeli President Shimon Peres will visit Croatia this week where he will pay tribute to the victims of a notorious World War II concentration camp, the presidency said on Wednesday.   

Peres, who is to arrive for a three-day visit to Croatia on Friday, is to meet his Croatian counterpart Ivo Josipovic and Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor, a statement from Josipovic's office said.   

Peres will also visit the site of the Jasenovac camp, known as 'Croatia's Auschwitz,' some 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of Zagreb.   

There he is to visit a memorial museum, lay wreaths and hold a brief speech, the statement said.   

In 2003, the then Israeli president Moshe Katsav also visited Jasenovac.   

The number of those killed in Jasenovac by Croatia's World War II pro-Nazi regime -- mostly Serbs, followed by Jews, Roma and anti-fascist Croatians -- is disputed. They vary from tens of thousands to 700,000 according to Serbian figures.   

Relations between Croatia and Israel were strained during the 1990s rule of Croatia's late autocratic president Franjo Tudjman whom Israel accused offailing to make a strong denunciation of the country's pro-Nazi Ustasha regime.   

An estimated 75 percent of Croatia's 40,000 Jews were murdered by the Ustasha.   

The ties between the two countries have improved since Tudjman's death in 2000.