ZAGREB, October 19, 2019 – Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović said on Friday that major issues should be resolved first and then steps taken for everybody to feel safe before setting up official and street signs in the Cyrillic alphabet in the eastern town of Vukovar.
“I find important the decision made by the Vukovar Town Council that conditions have not been met for Cyrillic signs, having in mind that the constitutional law on the rights of ethnic minorities envisages that all those rights must be in the service of facilitating coexistence between the majority Croatian people and minorities, and that the rights of the Croatian people should be respected,” the president said.
I was engaged in efforts to reach the peaceful reintegration (of Croatia’s Danube region in the 1996-1998 period). I can say that the results achieved are better than expected. The Croatians and the Serbs, who had enough courage at the time, agreed on coexistence. Croatia was the first to show that it did not want warfare and acceded to some conditions, although I believe that this could have been settled in some other way, the president said.
The Croatian state leadership demonstrated that it did not want a war and that it was committed to peace and coexistence with the Serb and other ethnic minorities, she said.
I believe that the issues about which I warned a few days ago will be resolved, Grabar-Kitarović said, criticising again the national judicial system for “under-performance” in dealing with war crimes. There is no reconciliation nor future without justice, she added.
As for Cyrillic signs in Vukovar, she commented that first some major things should be solved. “I do not underestimate any issue. The Cyrillic alphabet is important to some people, and if I can help in any way on behalf of the majority Croatian people, I will do that,” the president said during her visit to the village of Novi Farkašić.
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