An email hoaxer conned a leading Croatian newspaper into printing what it thought was an exclusive interview with the country's prime minister.

CROATIA’S interior minister has resigned after being photographed on a hunting holiday with a war crimes suspect.

Croatia’s interior minister has resigned after being photographed on a hunting holiday with a war crimes suspect.

Croatia’s ruling conservatives and opposition centre-left Social were virtually tied in parliamentary elections today, leaving the make up of the future government unclear, exit polls and preliminary results showed.

Croatians were voting in closely contested parliamentary elections today, choosing between the ruling conservatives set to steer the ex-Yugoslav country into the European Union and leftist opposition.

THE Yugoslav war crimes tribunal convicted a wartime leader of Croatia’s rebel Serbs of murder, torture and persecution yesterday and sentenced him to 35 years in prison for a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign of non-Serbs in Croatia.

Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader has criticised the European Union’s stance over his country’s diplomatic squabble with Italy concerning World War II victims.

The European Union opened membership talks with Croatia after the United Nations war crimes tribunal’s chief prosecutor said the government in Zagreb was now co-operating fully with efforts to bring a suspect to trial.

EU ambassadors meet today in an effort to overcome differences that threaten to derail the start of Turkey’s formal EU membership negotiations – with opposition from Austria appearing to be the biggest obstacle.

The arrest of an alleged Croatian underworld boss in Greece has raised hopes that one of the UN war crimes tribunal’s most wanted suspects is also within grasp.

Ann Cahill, Europe Correspondent

Croatia’s incumbent president Stipe Mesic promised today to align the former Yugoslav country more closely with the West after overwhelmingly winning a second term in a run-off election.

Croatian President Stipe Mesic insisted he would win a presidential runoff and lead Croatia to the European Union after failing by a narrow margin to win an outright first-round victory in yesterday’s election.

Hungary’s prime minister today expressed support for Croatia’s bid to become a member of the European Union.