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.

Exit polls tonight showed the opposition centre-left Social Democrats slightly ahead of the ruling conservatives in Croatian parliamentary elections, but neither party appeared to have won outright.

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.

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.

Croatian and British security experts were today following up leads after a mailroom bomb that injured a local employee at the British Embassy in the Croat capital Zagreb.

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.

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