Austria's Kleine Zeitung newspaper, which recently published an interview with Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, said on Wednesday that the interview had indeed been edited and that a "geographical misunderstanding" occurred, regretting the "inconvenience" caused to the president.

“President Grabar-Kitarovic is right. She is not to blame at all,” the paper told N1 television.

“In the contentious paragraph, the president indeed referred solely to the Muslim community in Velika Kladusa. Due to big time constraints, we had to significantly edit the text a number of times. Due to a language and geographical misunderstanding – we knew that village is in the border area, but we thought it is in Croatia, not in Bosnia and Herzegovina – the editing resulted in such an awkward sentence,” Kleine Zeitung said.

The paper added that it deeply regretted the “inconvenience” caused to Grabar-Kitarovic. “All the more so given that we have also received numerous positive reactions to the interview.”

The president said earlier on Wednesday that she never claimed that “Croatian Muslims fear for their inclusion in society” and that a key part of her sentence was left out during editing.

Unfortunately, when her answer was being edited, a key part of the sentence was left out, the part in which the president refers to appeals from Velika Kladusa which express fears that the stability of the local community is under threat, her office said in a press release.

Prior to that, the head of the Islamic Community in Croatia, Aziz Hasanovic, said he was unpleasantly surprised by the president’s statement that Muslims in Croatia lived in fear and that it was difficult to include migrants in the Islamic community.

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