WikiLeaks sheds new light on Slovenia-Croatia deal?

The Slovenian Opposition has continued challenging Prime Minister Borut Pahor's position that the border arbitration agreement with Croatia is a great success of his foreign policy, and following the publication of secret documents on the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, some Opposition leaders have said that papers on Slovenia show the government's servility in foreign affairs, all of which sheds new light on the deal between Pahor and Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor.

Slovenian People's Party (SLS) leader Radovan Zerjav said in a statement on Wednesday that he wondered why the arbitration agreement with Croatia took effect on Monday, immediately after it was announced that WikiLeaks would make public U.S. diplomatic messages, including reports made by U.S. diplomats in Slovenia.

"After being postponed for several months, the exchange of diplomatic notes (between Slovenia and Croatia) on the arbitration agreement was carried out suddenly late last week," Zerjav said, adding that the publication of documents might shed new light on the deal.

Earlier this week, after a report on communication between Pahor and the U.S. charge d'affaires Bradley Freden were published by the U.S. web site, Zerjav criticised Pahor for pursuing a "servile policy" towards the USA.

The report shows that Washington was involved in efforts to settle the border dispute between Slovenia and Croatia and that the USA advocated the unblocking of Croatia's accession negotiations with the EU throughout 2009.

Also on Wednesday, Pahor dismissed the criticism, adding that historians would judge the agreement and that "filigree-style" diplomatic efforts were invested in the agreement.

He ruled out a worsening of relations with Croatia following the document leak.

Slovenia PM, US ambassador deny WikiLeaks cable on conditioned entry of Guantanamo inmate

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia - Slovenia's prime minister and the U.S. ambassador are denying a WikiLeaks cable suggesting he sought a meeting with President Barack Obama in return for accepting a Guantanamo inmate.

Borut Pahor said Wednesday he would be "ashamed" to make such a deal.

Mussomeli, said there was "no linkage, no deal and no quid pro quo" negotiated for Slovenia's potential assistance regarding Guantanamo.According to the cable, U.S. ambassador Joseph A. Mussomeli's predecessor reported that Pahor "unambiguously" linked the Guantanamo issue with meeting Obama.

Pahor also reportedly promised that a U.S. firm would build a potential new reactor at Slovenia's nuclear plant. He says he merely called on potential investors.

WikiLeaks Slovenia: Someone Never Learned To Read

“‘What can Slovenia do to secure a meeting between Prime Minister Pahor and President Obama”‘ asked foreign minister Samuel Žbogar, exposes WikiLeaks
Slovenia is again a topic in the exposed secret US diplomatic documents and again the issue is the desire of Slovene PM Borut Pahor to meet US President Barack Obama
According to German Spiegel, foreign minister Samuel Žbogar was inquiring with US representatives as to what conditions must be met to make such a meeting hapen.”

This, more or less is the lead of today’s article on RTVSLO (state radio and television) website. This comes only a day after PM Borut Pahor called a press conference and denied allegations of horse-trading with the Americans, basically saying that a) yes, he’d like to meed Obama, b) would be glad to take in a Gitmo detainee regardless and c) he never linked anything to anything else, regardless of what the cable says and when (somewhat predictably, since it’s their document which is causing all this embarrassment) the new US Ambassador to Slovenia Joseph Mussomeli issued a written statement saying basically the same thing, adding that PM Pahor is an honest and honourable man. Someone’s lying.

Or, better yet, someone can’t really read. My money’s on the latter. The infamous Spiegel article has been around for at least 72 hours. Pengovsky was first alerted to it by alcessa. I linked to it again yesterday. It was then linked to again by Žiga Turk (a prominent member of opposition SDS). In short, this shit is old by internet standards.

Even more important, this is part of the same story. Half-wits at RTVSLO – well, their web section at least – for reasons that are known only to them infer that there was a second cable (Slovenia is again a topic… and the issueagain is…) which in addition to PM Pahor implicated FM Žbogar as well.

However, there is no “again” here. Not yet, anyhow. Der Spiegel, NY Times, El Pais and Guardian all worked with the same set of documents (the entire 250k+ batch) and they all saw it fit to expose Slovenia-US horse-trading. And save the sole cable posted yesterday by El Pais, none of the cables pertaining to Slovenia have been released by WikiLeaks yet. None. Zero.

Indeed it is still a mystery as to how exactly could they have arrived at such different conclusions: NYT reports US pressured Slovenia. No names are mentioned. El Pais reports Slovenia pressured the US and names PM Pahor and making no mention of FM Žbogar. And Der Spiegel reports Slovenia was horse-trading with the US but mentions Žbogar, omitting Pahor completely. But they all published their pieces on the same day, 29 November 2010 (three days ago), while the general public, which in this case includes Slovene media has yet to see anything more than a single cable from US Embassy Ljubljana. I know I’m repeating myself, but I can not stress this point enough.

To put it in the words of Al Pacino: We’re in the dark here!

Point being, web section of RTVSLO is either making things up or really has a problem reading and/or googling.

(again, many thanks to alcessa for the heads-up) - taken from http://www.pengovsky.com/2010/12/02/wikileaks-slovenia-someone-never-learned-to-read/