The Serbian president and defence minister said on Friday that Serbia and Croatia were two different worlds, especially in terms of moral issues.

“Serbia and Croatia are two worlds, especially in regard to [World War 2 Croatian death camp] Jasenovac and other very important, not historical but moral issues,” the Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said in Skopje after a meeting of Western Balkans leaders.

He added that Serbia should turn to itself and try not to take part in something that could damage its reputation.

The Serbian Defence Minister Aleksandar Vulin also said earlier that he and Croatian Prime Minister, Andrej Plenkovic, were two different worlds.

“This really is about two completely different worlds. The symbol of my world is Jasenovac and the symbol of Plenkovic’s world is Bleiburg. I am an anti-fascist,” Vulin said referring to the border village in Austria where Yugoslav partisans are said to have killed a large number of Croatian Ustashi fascists at the end of World War 2. 

The statements came as a reaction to the words of the Croatian Defence Minister, Damir Krsticevic, who said that the Serbian Defence Minister Vulin and him were “two different worlds” and that the decision to declare him persona non grata in Serbia was unjustified.

The two countries have been caught in a diplomatic row since last week, when Croatia declared Vulin persona non grata after he said that only Aleksandar Vucic, as the Commander-in-Chief of the Serbian military, could decide whether he wished to enter into Croatia. Serbia retaliated on Thursday by banning his Croatian counterpart.

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