ZAGREB, February 1, 2018 – By staging its exhibition about the Ustasha-run Jasenovac camp in New York, Serbia attempted to make associations between the (1941-1945) Independent State of Croatia (NDH) and the present-day Croatia, and the Croatian government will never allow that, Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said at the beginning of his cabinet’s meeting in Zagreb on Thursday.
At the beginning of the meeting, the Prime Minister gave an overview of significant events in the period since the previous session, however, he made no mention of the announced visit of Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić to Croatia whom Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović invited to come to Zagreb in mid-February.
Plenković again criticised Belgrade for trying to instrumentalise the topic of the Jasenovac camp victims when staging the exhibition in New York on the occasion of Holocaust Remembrance Day. He said that with the exhibition, Belgrade tried to make associations between the present day Croatia and the NDH. “We all know that the present-day Croatia is founded on absolutely other values.”
This has been evidenced by Croatia’s Constitution and the Homeland Defence War and we will not let any instrumentalisation that would depict Croatia negatively, Plenković added. “We will articulate this position to our neighbours and the international community.”
The United Nations, where Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic recently officially opened the exhibition, has distanced itself from the content of the exhibition. The UN has said that the content of the exhibition is the organisers’ responsibility and that its staging on UN premises does not imply acceptance by the UN.
