Croatia will be officially represented by Ambassador Joško Paro.
At least three current or former Croatian officials will attend the inauguration of the new US President Donald Trump on Friday in Washington, reports Večernji List on January 17, 2017.
Chairman of Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs and former Foreign Minister Miro Kovač will travel to Washington as a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. “I have planned meetings with US politicians and experts on foreign policy in the Trump administration”, said Kovač. Former Education Minister Dragan Primorac has been invited as a member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and as a “global ambassador” of Penn State University. An invitation was also received by Domagoj Juričić, former Chief of Staff of President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, who served in the United States as a diplomat.
According to unofficial diplomatic sources, the official representative of Croatian government at Donald Trump’s administration will be Croatian Ambassador to the United States Joško Paro, who will have obviously returned by Friday to Washington after the holiday which was recently revealed to the public by President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović who was angry that the Ambassador was not present in Washington during her still unexplained visit to the United States in the first days of the new year. So far, there is no information whether the President will send someone as her personal envoy to the inauguration.
Dragan Primorac confirmed he would attend the Trump’s inauguration, adding that he will also meet with Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, who chairs the House Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats. Primorac proudly points out that Rohrabacher is “a close associate of Donald Trump and was one of the leading candidates to become Secretary of State of the United States”. While in Washington, Primorac plans to meet with the leadership of the pro-Israel lobbying organization American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Primorac was Minister of Science, Education and Sports from 2003 to 2009, in two governments headed by Prime Minister Ivo Sanader. After Sanader resigned in July 2009, Primorac left his post. He was also one of candidates at presidential elections in December 2009. In the first round, he was sixth with 5.93 percent of votes and did not enter the second round.
Miro Kovač was Foreign Minister from January to October 2016, in the government led by Prime Minister Tihomir Orešković. Kovač was a close associate of then HDZ president Tomislav Karamarko. After new HDZ president Andrej Plenković became Prime Minister in October, he did not reappoint Kovač, offering him instead the post of Chairman of Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs, which Kovač accepted.
