The parliamentary Foreign Policy Committee also discussed the arbitration ruling. The members of the Committee questioned Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec about the letter he received from U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson a few days ago. In mid-October, Erjavec received an answer to a letter he had sent to the United States in July – immediately after the United States said that the border dispute between the two countries was a bilateral issue. Erjavec stressed in his July letter that the arbitration ruling was legally binding and thus part of international law.

Erjavec also told the parliamentary Foreign Policy Committee that Tillerson did not echo Croatia’s stance on the border arbitration ruling: Unlike Zagreb, Tillerson did not say that the arbitration ruling was non-binding and that it should not be respected. Erjavec, moreover, said that the U.S. refused to take sides in the dispute, and instead urged both Slovenia and Croatia to engage in dialogue.