Office of President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović released a statement on her invitation for Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit Croatia.

The Office said the invitation still stands, and that the matter is a “separate bilateral process”, Dnevnik.hr reported on Tuesday.

On Monday, the highest Croatian state officials met and agreed to expel one Russian diplomat in solidarity with the UK over the nerve gas attack in Salisbury which targeted former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal.

Grabar-Kitarović was the first western head of state who congratulated Putin on his win in the presidential election earlier this month which secured his fourth term on the job, expected to last until 2024.

Last week, she had a phone conversation with Putin and invited him to visit Croatia, just as Prime Minister Andrej Plenković was in Brussels attending a European Council meeting in which EU countries expressed solidarity with the UK and condemned the attack, widely believed to have been perpetrated by Russia.

Replying to an e-mailed question whether Grabar-Kitarović agreed with government’s decision to expel a Russian diplomat in light of the invitation to Putin, her spokeswoman, Ivana Crnić, said that this was a “common view of state officials” and that “there is nothing to add.”