Commenting on President Zoran Milanovic's statements on the Srebrenica genocide and the murder of the Zec family, Deputy Prime Minister Boris Milosevic said on Wednesday that the public could hear a dreadful comment instead of a message of empathy and encouragement as befitting a head of state.

Milosevic was speaking to the press after the presentation of a plan for the construction of substitute housing for earthquake victims. Tomo Medved, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, was also present.

Both deputy prime ministers were asked to comment on Milanovic’s statements that there were different types of genocide and that the surviving members of the Zec family, an ethnic Serb minority family from Zagreb, had received financial compensation from the government  “and what more should be done?” They said they did not want to comment on the president’s rhetoric and let any other issue overshadow the post-earthquake reconstruction plan.

“I will only say that, instead of empathy and a message of encouragement, which should be expected from an institution such as the President of the Republic, we heard a dreadful comment. I wouldn’t go beyond that,” Milosevic said.

Medved said he believed that housing reconstruction was the number one topic for earthquake victims and that there was no need to discuss other matters.