Serbia’s President, Aleksandar Vucic, said on Monday that Belgrade would respond to Zagreb for its message that a Serbian government minister was not welcome in Croatia.
He said he did not understand Zagreb’s decision to deny hospitality to Aleksandar Vulin, Serbia’s Defence Minister, describing it as “hasty and nervous”.
“We will react with reciprocal measures which the government would decided upon on Thursday,” Vucic said. However, he added, Belgrade would continue to work on good relations with Zagreb.
Speaking to reporters at the ceremony marking the Army’s Day, Vucic said the Kosovo problem would be difficult to solve because the Albanians did not want a compromise.
However, he added he was not sure “to what extent the Serbian society understands that we lost (the war against NATO) in 1999, that we had a catastrophic policy in 2004-11 period and that the price is being paid now…”
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“But that doesn’t mean that someone should get something that never belonged to them, and that we loose what was always ours,” Vucic said.
Referring to the statement by the Chairman of Bosnia’s Council of Ministers Denis Zvizdic who said he respected Serbia but loved Sandzak (a southwestern part of Serbia mostly populated by the Bosniaks), Vucic said that everybody had a right to love what they want.
Zvizdic actually paraphased Vucic’s words about honouring Bosnia but loving Republika Srpska (a Serb semi-autonomuos entity in Bosnia).
“I have to point out to him – since he is not a lawyer and thus does not understand it quite well – the constitutional and legal status of RS and Raska region, or Sandzak, what the Bosniaks call it, is neither the same nor similar,” Vucic said.
He added that “Zvizdic may be sending a message that the RS should not be constitutionally and legally regulated, but that would not be a good message.”
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