Unveiling a memorial plaque to a war criminal, the Yugoslav People's Army general who ordered the attack on Vukovar, is scandalous and Croatia condemns it in the strongest terms, Foreign Minister Gordan Grlic Radman said in Rijeka on Friday.

The memorial plaque, to be unveiled by the Serbian government in Novi Sad later today, commemorates General Mladen Bratic, who commanded the attack on Vukovar in 1991, was labelled in Croatia as well as by Serbia’s civil sector as a mockery of the victims of war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide in the 1990s.

“That’s scandalous and we condemn it in the strongest terms, if it happens at all,” the minister said. “He was actually a war criminal. He was killed attacking a foreign country, our country, the Croatian town of Vukovar.”

Unveiling a memorial plaque to a war criminal is certainly not conducive to stabilisation and good neighbourly relations, he said. “We find the direction in which Serbia’s foreign policy is going unacceptable and incomprehensible.”

Serbia must deal with its past, turn to building a democratic society, the rule of law and ethnic minority rights, Grlic Radman said, adding that “EU leaders are warning (Serbia) about that.”

He dismissed media speculation that Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic would speak in the Croatian parliament during a European People’s Party congress in Zagreb later this month.