President Zoran Milanovic on Monday co-signed the proposal for nominating the candidate, General Ivan Turkalj, for the director of the Military Security and Intelligence Agency (VSOA), the Office of the President stated in a press release.

On 3 August, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic co-signed the nomination of the candidate concerned for the VSOA head and forwarded this proposal to President Milanovic to co-sign it, the government stated in its press release last Thursday.

The decision to appoint Brigadier Ante Kujundzic, a VSOA employee, as a caretaker director authorised to coordinate work and sign documents from the VSOA’s remit during his one-month term, expires on 10 August. The powers of the interim director are limited.

The government stated last Thursday that the proposal for the candidate was forwarded to the Office of President Milanovic after it stated on Wednesday that the agreement was reached on the nomination of the VSOA chief.

For the process to move forward, it is necessary to convene the parliamentary committee on home affairs and national security to give its opinion on the candidate.

The Office of President stated today that as a result of agreement between President Milanovic and PM Plenkovic which they reached in Sinj on Sunday, Milanovic also signed the appointments of several nominated candidates who will thus fill the vacancies in the command staff in the country’s Armed Forces.

The statement issued by the Office of the President specifies those eight appointments.

For instance, one of them is the appointment of General Kreso Tuskan as the director of the main staff of the Armed Forces.

The press release issued by the Office of the President also reads that the head of state expects the defence minister to implement the previous agreements and to conduct the procedure to nominating the Croatian military attache to NATO and to the European Union, among other things.