Milošević–Tuđman Karađorđevo meeting
In the following years, however, the meeting became substantially more controversial, as numerous Yugoslav politicians claimed that Tuđman and Milošević had discussed and agreed to the partitioning of Bosnia and Herzegovina along ethnic lines, such that territories with either a Croat or Serb majority would be annexed to the soon to be independent Croatia or Serbia respectively, with a rump Bosniak buffer state remaining in between.
On 25 January, the Federal Secretariat for National Defense (SSNO) directly accused Croatia of preparing paramilitary forces to attack the Yugoslav People's Army.
[13][14] In this situation, all six leaders of the Yugoslav republics, Franjo Tuđman, Slobodan Milošević, Alija Izetbegović, Kiro Gligorov (SR Macedonia), Milan Kučan and Momir Bulatović organized a meeting in Split for 28 March 1991.
[15] The meeting between Franjo Tuđman and Slobodan Milošević took place on the afternoon of 25 March 1991 in Karađorđevo near Bačka Palanka in the Serbian province of Vojvodina.
Sarajevo newspaper Bosanski pogledi (Bosnian views) had a title the next day: "Tuđman, Milošević, Izetbegović, Tripartite Pact for the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina".
Milošević made a speech one week after the Belgrade riots where he outlined plans which involved the incorporation of a large area of Croatia into the new Yugoslavia.
In spite of the meetings, the Croatian War of Independence started on 31 March 1991 with the Plitvice Lakes incident, where a clash of Croat and Serb forces occurred.
[citation needed] At a meeting with a Bosnian Croat delegation on December 27, 1991, Tuđman announced that conditions allowed for an agreement to redraw the boundaries of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as it was not yet independent, and peace plans at the time envision it as a "three nations" country.
Political scientist Kristen P. Williams noted in 2001 how the Bosnian leadership at the time viewed the meeting as part of a collusion between Milošević and Tuđman to destroy Bosnia.
"[42] On the other hand, most Croatian historians consider it a political myth because of a lack of direct evidence, and the difficulty of explaining the Yugoslav Wars, with Croats and Serbs as the main antagonists, in the context of a Serbo-Croatian agreement.
[43][need quotation to verify] Ivica Lučić and Miroslav Tuđman claim that testimonies do not match, and that the anomalies can be explained by particular political interests.
He said that they did not know more details, but concludes: However, it is today clear that what happened in Karađorđevo makes[clarification needed] the whole history of our relations and explains events which followed all this, three to four years afterwards.
[47] In November 1992, Dobroslav Paraga, leader of the right-wing Croatian party HSP, publicly announced that he has recordings of talks between Tuđman and Milošević that prove they want to divide Bosnia.
[50] On 26 March 1991, a day after the meeting, Mesić gave a comment to the Associated Press, saying that the Yugoslav republic presidents will reach an agreement on the future of the country no later than 15 May 1991.
Mesić stated that this decision was motivated by his disagreement with Croatia's policy on BiH, specifically Tuđman's alleged agreement with Milošević in Karađorđevo.
He left HDZ three years after the Karađorđevo meeting, and after the whole Croat–Bosniak War was finished with the Washington Agreement, when Croats and Bosniaks established the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
[53] At the trial of Tihomir Blaškić, Mesić said during his testimony: "Tuđman came back from Karađorđevo that same day and he told us [...] that it would be difficult for Bosnia to survive, that we could get borders of the Banovina.
[55] When Stjepan Mesić became the president of Croatia after the death of Tuđman, he testified at ICTY about the existence of a plan to divide Bosnia and Herzegovina into three parts, between Serbs and Croats, and a small Bosniak state.
"[58] Hrvoje Šarinić, former head of Tuđman's office, wrote a book Svi moji tajni pregovori sa Slobodanom Miloševićem (All my secret negotiations with Slobodan Milošević) in 1998 in which he published photographs taken in Karađorđevo, but did not write anything about the content of the meeting.
(...) on our return to Zagreb, Tuđman showed me a piece of paper he received from Milošević, about the great danger of the spread of Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
(...) Today I am almost certain that, in preparation for the meeting in Karađorđevo, Milošević forged the paper with the sole intention to pull Tuđman to divide Bosnia and Herzegovina.
"[62] Šarinić went on to say that whilst Bosnia was discussed between the presidents, only one side put any plan into practice, and that was the Serbs in ethnically cleansing and preparing Republika Srpska for annexation.
[63] The former prime minister of SFRY, Ante Marković, also testified at ICTY and confirmed an agreement was made to divide Bosnia and Herzegovina between Serbia and Croatia.
He told this to the Bosniak leader Alija Izetbegović, who gave him secretly made tapes of conversations between Milošević and Radovan Karadžić, discussing the JNA support of the Bosnian Serbs.
[67] Dušan Bilandžić, an advisor to Franjo Tuđman, said in December 1991 that Serbia offered an agreement on the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the beginning of 1991, which the Croatian side rejected.
In an interview with Croatian weekly Nacional on 25 October 1996, Bilandžić said that after the negotiations with Slobodan Milošević, "it was agreed that two commissions should meet and discuss the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina".
"[70] In 2006, Ivo Banac wrote that it is possible that an "agreement with Milošević at Karađorđevo [...] was the final step" in the direction of the "reasonable territorial division" mentioned by Tuđman in his 1981 book.
[73] British historian Mark Almond wrote in 2003 that "this meeting has attained mythical status in the conspiracy theory literature which equates Tuđman and Milošević as partners in crime in the demonology of the Balkan conflict.
"[74] In 2006, Croatian writer Branka Magaš wrote that Tuđman continued to pursue a settlement with Milošević, of which the cost was borne by Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a considerable part of Croatia itself.
[75] In 2010, historian Sabrina P. Ramet noted that while there is sufficient information to indicate that the partition of Bosnia was a topic of some interest in Croatia and Serbia at the time, subsequent to the meeting, Milošević did not behave as if he had an agreement with Tuđman.
