ZAGREB, February 12, 2018 – Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković confirmed on Monday that he had discussed the issue of war reparations with visiting Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, in line with his earlier announcement.
“I discussed all outstanding issues between the two countries with the President of Serbia – the war missing, the border, judicial cooperation, war reparations, protection of minorities, succession and economic cooperation, the European context and relations in Southeast Europe,” Plenković wrote on his Twitter account.
Vučić told reporters that one of the topics of his talks with Plenkovic were war reparations. “We discussed many things… one of the topics raised by Prime Minister Plenković were war reparations,” Vučić said, adding that his and Plenković’s positions on the matter differed.
Commenting ahead of Vučić’s visit on war reparations, Plenković said that the issue of war reparations for the Great Serbia aggression caused justified public interest and that Vučić’s visit would be an opportunity to discuss that topic, covered by the Agreement on the Normalisation of Relations.
Commenting on his visit to Zagreb on Sunday, Vučić said that there were no taboo topics for Serbia and that Plenković would get “a responsible and serious answer” if he raised the issue of war reparations.
As the Serbian president was leaving the government building, heading for the parliament building where he was expected to meet Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković, MOST MP Miro Bulj heckled him. “Don’t think that I’m afraid of you or your remarks. I can answer whenever you want, how much you want and whatever you want,” Vučić retorted.
Asked by reporters what he told Vučić, Bulj said that he had asked him when he would visit Glina where he had incited local Serbs to support the Great Serbia ideology and that he had told him to go there and apologise, “primarily to local Serbs for inciting them to attack Croatia and try to create a Great Serbia.”
Asked to comment on Vučić’s visit and his messages after talks with President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, Bulj said that he did not know “what his messages are and what this whole thing is about.” “War reparations should have been paid long ago. Documentation from the Vukovar Hospital should have been (given back) long ago. He should have said long ago where our dead are because he was one of the main war-mongers, he was the main aide to the Chetnik leader (Vojislav) Šešelj. He has the information on that,” said Bulj.
The MP also said that Vučić could have brought documents from the Yugoslav People’s Army archive. “All the information is in that archive, why did not he bring that today,” said Bulj.
