Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Tuesday he would meet on Thursday with the military commanders of the 1995 Operation Flash whom Bosnia and Herzegovina wants to be prosecuted by Croatia, adding that no indictments had been filed and that Croatia would protect its commanders and soldiers.

“The most important message to our wartime commanders and the Croatian public is, there are no indictments from BiH… There is a request for legal aid which arrived via diplomatic channels from BiH,” he told the press in Opatija.

He said that only yesterday could he saw what this was about. “It’s a lot of documents which the relevant services are examining. When they have examined them, we will all be in a better position to understand, in terms of substance, what this is about, after which we will take the appropriate steps.”

At the meeting with the wartime commanders, he said, “we will explain to them what we know so far, after which we will decide on the steps with which to close this issue.”

Asked if it might be better for the State Attorney’s Office to decide on that, he reiterated that after experts examined the documentation, he would say more about the best way to settle the matter.

“We will protect both our commanders and national interests, and we will be guided by… the rule of law principle. Every move we make should be based in law and the international agreements we have.”

Asked if there was a political background to the BiH prosecution request, Plenkovic said he would not comment until he saw the details.

BiH Presidency chairman Zeljko Komsic said on Monday there was no legal basis for his country to prosecute Croatian Army officers for participating in Operation Flash, but that they might be prosecuted in connection with Maestral and Southern Move, operations in BiH in which the Croatian Army took part.

Asked if that was an announcement of new requests from BiH, Plenkovic said he did not know at the moment. “In any case, we will know how to answer every question, every problem. We know very well what (operations) Flash and Storm were. We know very well what Croatia did for BiH’s survival.”

He said that one should not forget that just a couple of weeks after the Srebrenica genocide in July 1995, the Croatian military and police Operation Storm made it possible not only to liberate a large part of Croatia’s occupied territory but also to connect with the Army of BiH to prevent what happened in Srebrenica from also happening in Bihac.

“Croatia helped BiH in every sense, both during the Homeland War and now, which is why we want to clear up some things, if necessary, in an open dialogue. Regarding our soldiers, commanders, they have nothing to worry about. The government will be here, protecting them in the best way possible under the principles I mentioned earlier,” said Plenkovic.