Diplomatic Incident

Goran Granić (Goran Granic), Croatian deputy prime minister, was hardly the most outspoken of all member of Račan's (Racan's) government. Many accused him of sycophancy and lack of spine (although many still commend his administrative abilities, witnessed during his tenure as Croatian power company during Tudjman years).

All this is going to change, thanks to Iraq.

As some of the readers of this blog know, Račan's government was initially very willing to unconditionally support American war against Iraq. In the last minute, partly due to pressure from France and Germany, partly due to surprisingly massive opposition to war within the country (and across ideological lines), it changed the tune and adopted "Old Europe" position. This caused US Ambassador Lawrence Rossin to use some very un-diplomatic language to express his opinion on Croatian conduct.

The only official to answer him was Granić, and he also used some not very diplomatic language to express his opinion. This earned Granić great deal of sympathy within Croatian public.

According to interview given to Novi List daily, Granić went even further and accused couple of Western diplomats as "unfit for their jobs, ridiculous and making pathetic statements". When confronted about diplomats' identity, he named officials within British Embassy, US Ambassador, Dutch government, few other misinformed diplomats and international organisation representatives".

First reaction from Račan's cabinet said that the Prime Minister would try to verify authenticity of Granić's statements.