EXERCISING THE RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION
Joint session of all the chambers of the Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia
Speech by the President of the Presidency, Milan Kucan

Ljubljana, Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia, 20 February 1991

“We have set out the position that a political dialogue over resolving the Yugoslav national and political crisis, and on the future position of the Yugoslav republics, can only take place between the republics as sovereign states, who have indeed never renounced their sovereignty. Yugoslavia was established historically on the foundation of the voluntary association of nations that already possessed a national structure, and based on their right to self-determination. The AVNOJ agreement on joining a federal common state was not an agreement of territorially unconnected nations. Indeed, this decision based on the self-determination of nations was decided on by the then national assemblies of federal states, which sent delegations to the meeting in Jajce and later each individually confirmed their work. By exercising the right to self-determination the current community ceases to exist as a state, and the resulting re-emerged states must establish full control over their own territory, plus independently obtain international recognition of their national and legal subjectivity,” stressed the President of the Presidency, Milan Kucan, in his introductory address on the debate by Slovenia's deputies on settling relations in Yugoslavia and on the dissolution by consensus of the SFR Yugoslavia.