Slovenia, Croatia to sign border row deal Wednesday: PM

(LJUBLJANA) - Slovenia and Croatia will sign on Wednesday a deal allowing international arbitration to resolve a thorny border dispute, Slovenian Prime Minister Borut Pahor said Tuesday.

"We will sign a good agreement that is very good for Slovenia," Pahor told journalists before joining a parliamentary foreign affairs committee meeting to discuss the agreement.

After a four-hour debate, the committee gave Pahor the green light to sign the deal with Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor in Sweden, the country that currently holds the rotating European Union presidency.

The agreement will create an arbitration tribunal with the task of finding a solution to the border dispute that emerged after the two states declared independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991.

The ruling of the tribunal will be binding for both countries and will secure Slovenia's access to international shipping waters, a point crucial for Ljubljana.

On the other hand, under the deal Slovenia commits not to block again Croatia's EU accession talks and agrees that the arbitration will start only after Zagreb successfully concludes membership negotiations with the bloc.

Slovenia's centre-right opposition urged Pahor not to sign the agreement, saying it was harmful for Slovenia and would open the way for Croatia's accession to the EU without any guarantees that the dispute would be solved.

The Croat parliament on Monday gave Kosor the green light to sign the agreement with Slovenia.

Croatia resumed its EU membership talks in October after Slovenia, an EU member, ended a 10-month block of the negotiations because of the border dispute involving a small piece of land and sea.

Slovenia joined the EU in 2004 while Croatia is hoping to become the bloc's 28th member by 2011.