A meeting of Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and wartime generals and high-ranking officers over Bosnia and Herzegovina's request for legal aid concerning the 1995 liberating Operation Flash is scheduled for 11 a.m. Thursday in Zagreb.

Plenkovic said on Tuesday he would meet with the military commanders of the 1995 Operation Flash after Bosnia and Herzegovina requested Croatia to open a case against them.

Plenkovic underscored that no indictment 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 Bosnia… There is a request for legal aid which arrived via diplomatic channels from Bosnia,” he told the press.

At the meeting with the wartime commanders, Plenkovic 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.”

“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 Bosnia’s prosecution request, Plenkovic said yesterday he would not comment until he saw the details.

On Sunday, Croatian President Zoran Milanovic said that a conclusion on non-cooperation in proceedings against Croatian military commanders adopted six years ago was still in force and that the letter of request from the Bosnian Prosecutor’s Office was sabotage and a poisoning of relations.

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Justice Minister Josip Grubesa (HDZ BiH) said there was no need to politicise the letter of request sent by the Prosecutor’s Office to the Croatian Justice Ministry to take over the prosecution of 14 Croatian Army generals, stressing that this was a purely legal matter.

In the meantime the Croatian Justice Ministry has confirmed receiving the letter from the Bosnian Prosecutor’s Office to take over the prosecution of 14 Croatian Army generals suspected by Bosnia and Herzegovina of war crimes allegedly committed during the 1995 Operation Flash.

In a lightning offensive launched on 1 May 1995, in less than 32 hours about 7,200 Croatian soldiers and police officers liberated about 600 square kilometres of the Croatian territory that had been under occupation for four years.

The result of that combined military and police operation, dubbed Operation Flash, was that Croatia regained control of the Serb-occupied Western Slavonia region and the town of Okucani, located about 130 kilometres southeast of Zagreb. During the war, Okucani was the centre of the Serb rebellion and a staging area for terrorist attacks in Western Slavonia.

After their defeat in Western Slavonia, the Serb insurgent leaders organised and ordered the missiles attacks on Zagreb, Karlovac and Jastrebarsko. During the attacks against Zagreb on 2 May 1995, seven civilians were killed and 218 wounded, while the attacks on Karlovac and Jastrebarsko only caused property damage. Serb rebel leader Milan Martic was sentenced by the UN tribunal ICTY to 35 years for war crimes committed during those missile attacks.