ZAGREB, October 15, 2018 – Right-wing political parties in Croatia have been evidently growing stronger and exerting strong pressure, which affects Serbia-Croatia relations and contributes to the continuation of an anti-Serb hysteria in Croatia, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić said on Sunday.
Stressing that Serbia had prosecuted and would prosecute anyone who had committed a war crime, Dačić told reporters, in a comment on a protest rally held in the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar on Saturday over dissatisfaction with inefficiency in war crimes prosecution, that “everyone should be aware of their own crimes rather than downplay their own crimes from World War II that are thousand times more massive and graver than the crimes committed in the 1990s.”
“I don’t know who they are complaining about, but as far as Serbia is concerned, it has and will sanction anyone who has committed a war crime,” Dačić told reporters ahead of a session of his Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) main committee, stressing that that was Serbia’a official position.
He noted that, in parallel with the Vukovar rally, a book about the Ustasha commander of the Jasenovac concentration camp, Maks Luburić, was being promoted in Croatia. “… There is evidently huge pressure and expansion of right-wing parties in Croatia and it affects Serbian-Croatian relations and contributes to the continuation of the current anti-Serb hysteria.”
Speaking of Kosovo, the Serbian minister said that “a clear change” had occurred in the position of the US administration “which no longer sees Kosovo as its child, but is trying to be impartial.”
“They are no longer a child of the West but a problem,” Dačić said, stressing that Kosovo’s foreign and home policy were on the defensive while “Serbia’s position is getting stronger and stronger.”
“We are continuing with our policy of withdrawal of the recognition of Kosovo’s independence and you will soon be informed of the matter.”
