and submitted a memorandum in the name of HSP to the Italian ministry of foreign affairs in which he offered to cooperate with Italy in dismembering Yugoslavia. In order to obtained Italian support for Croatian independence, the memorandum effectively made any such Croatia 'little more than an Italian protectorate'. The memorandum also stated that the Party of Rights recognised the existing territorial settlements between Italy and Yugoslavia, thus giving up all Croatian claims to Istria, Rijeka, Zadar and the Adriatic islands which Italy had annexed after World War I. These areas contained between 300,000 and 400,000 Croats. Further, the memorandum also agreed to cede the Bay of Kotor and Dalmatian headlands of strategic importance to Italy, and agreed that a future Croatia would not establish a navy. As the most radical politician of the Croatian Bloc, Pavelić sought opportunities to internationalize the "Croatian question" and highlight Yugoslavia's unsustainability. In December 1927, Pavelić defended four Macedonian students in Skopje who were accused of belonging to the Macedonian Youth Secret Revolutionary Organization founded by Ivan Mihailov. During the trial, Pavelić accused the court of setting them up and stressed the right to self-determination. This trial received public attention in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. Following his election as a member of the Croatian Bloc in the 1927 election, Pavelić became his party's liaison with Nikola Pašić. He was one of two elected Croatian Bloc candidates alongside Ante Trumbić, one of the key politicians in the creation of a Yugoslav state. From 1927 until 1929, he was part of the minuscule delegation of the Party of Rights in the Yugoslav Parliament. In 1927, he secretly contacted Benito Mussolini, dictator of Italy and founder of fascism, and presented his separatist ideas to him. Pavelić proposed an independent Greater Croatia that should cover the entire historical and ethnic area of the Croats. In summer 1928, the leaders of the Croatian Bloc, Trumbić and Pavelić, addressed the Italian consul in Zagreb to gain support for the Croatian struggle against regime of King Alexander. On 14 July, they received a positive response, after which Pavelić maintained contact. Historian Rory Yeomans claimed that there are indications that Pavelić had been considering the formation of some kind of nationalist insurgency group as early as 1928. After the assassination of Croatian politicians in the National Assembly, of which he was an eyewitness, Pavelić joined the Peasant-Democratic Coalition and started to publish a