Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic confirmed on Monday that she had changed her position and decided not to attend the intergovernmental conference to adopt the UN Global Compact for Migration (GCM) in Morocco next month.
Although she had confirmed her attendance to the conference in a letter to UN Secretary General in August, Grabar-Kitarovic told reporters on Monday that she is not going because there is no global consensus on migrant issues.
“Every day more and more states are leaving this agreement. I am not following the USA, Austria or any other state but only care about Croatian interests,” the president told reporters.
She said she neither approves nor disapproves the GCM, noting that the agreement on migration should not be a controversial issue among states, rather a matter of an agreement.
“My office has informed the Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that I will not participate in the conference in Marrakech and the Ministry should decide who, if any, will represent Croatia there,” Grabar-Kitarovic said.
Far-right commentators in Croatia claim that the GCM will force Croatia to accept uncontrolled migrations, which the Foreign Ministry denied on Friday.
In 2015 and 2016, nearly a million illegal migrants passed through Croatia on their way to Western Europe. Recently tens of thousands of migrants are located in Bosnia and Herzegovina near the border with Croatia, waiting to enter the European Union.
(Source: Xinhua)
