Row erupts between Croatia, Italy over wartime killings

EU:The EU is trying to defuse a bitter row between Croatia and Italy that has stirred up lingering resentment over atrocities committed by Italy and Yugoslavia during the second World War.

Italy summoned Croatia's ambassador to the foreign ministry and cancelled a government official's visit to Zagreb after a speech by Italian president Giorgio Napolitano provoked a furious response from his Croatian counterpart.

Mr Napolitano was speaking at a ceremony to mark the death of thousands of Italians at the hands of communist fighters between 1943 and 1945, when they were driven from their homes in Istria and northern Dalmatia, regions which are now part of Croatia.

The massacres were seen as reprisal for the harsh treatment meted out to local Slavs by the Italians who took control of the region after 1918, and for the brutal occupation of the wider area by Benito Mussolini's fascist forces between 1943 and 1945.

"There was a wave of hate and bloody fury, and a Slavic expansionist design . . . that took on the sinister appearance of ethnic cleansing," Mr Napolitano said of the so-called "foibe" killings, which took their name from the mountain crevasses into which the Yugoslavs hurled many of their victims.

Croatia's president, Stipe Mesic, swiftly denounced the comments. "It is impossible to overlook elements of open racism, historical revisionism and political revanchism in those statements, which hardly sit with a declared wish for an improvement in bilateral relations."

Italian prime minister Romano Prodi then fired his own shot across Zagreb's bows, expressing his "contempt for the absolutely unjustifiable words that, among other things, come after a period of great co-operation".

The foibe killings were taboo in Yugoslavia and post-war Italy, where the communist party was reluctant to besmirch the reputation of Tito's partisans, and successive governments sought good relations with a state that acted as a buffer between western Europe and the Soviet bloc.

Now, however, Croatia fears its bid to join the EU could be hampered by the historical grievances of its neighbours.

"Relations between Italy and Croatia are generally very friendly and we would hope that this good relationship could apply also for discussions of events which are painful to both sides," European Commission spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen said yesterday.