Croatia to launch a new tender for procurement of fighter aircraft

Answering questions from the press after meeting his Polish counterpart Mariusz Blaszczak, Damir Krsticevic reiterated that during their visit to Zagreb last week Israeli officials had confirmed that they had failed to obtain final approval from the United States for the sale of upgraded F-16 Barak aircraft to Croatia, even though they had preliminary approval for the deal. "It is solely their responsibility," he said.

"The Israelis reiterated once again that the entire process was highly professional and open on the Croatian part and that the people in Croatia showed a high level of responsibility, that we asked all the necessary questions and received all the necessary guarantees in this process," Krsticevic said.

"The United States, our strategic partner in defence, emphasised from the outset, including in its latest statement, that it gave full support for the Croatian acquisition of F-16 aircraft from Israel," he added.

Krsticevic said that Croatia would launch a new process to procure military aircraft.

"We will close this process transparently and, with all this experience and knowledge, we will start a new process which will be the best, so that Croatia will get quality multipurpose aircraft it needs for surveillance of its airspace. This government will certainly do all it can for this to happen," the defence minister said.