Croatia is opposing "revisionist narratives coming from some parts of the Western Balkans" as they might "destabilize the region," Foreign Minister Gordan Grlic-Radman told reporters in Brussels on Monday after a meeting of EU foreign ministers.

“He was speaking about Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s attempt to visit Jasenovac,” state news agency Hina helpfully explained.

Vucic reportedly tried to visit the memorial center at Jasenovac, the site of a concentration camp run by the Croatian Ustasha fascist regime during World War II, where thousands of ethnic Serbs, Jews, and Roma were murdered.

However, Vucic reportedly did not previously inform Croatian authorities about his visit “through diplomatic channels,” Croatian authorities, who denied the request, said.

“We could not believe that the denial of approval for the visit has whipped up such hysteria and nervousness in Serbia,” Grlic-Radman said.

Asked what he meant by “revisionist narratives” Grlic-Radman said that this referred to, “among other things,” to the statement by Serbian Interior Minister, Aleksandar Vulin, that the Western Balkans “can only be stable if all Serbs live in one country.”

“That’s not the narrative that reflects the 21st century and international law,” the Croatian foreign minister said.

He reiterated that Vucic’s attempt to visit Jasenovac was not appropriately communicated through diplomatic channels.

“It should be noted that Vucic comes from a country that had attacked Croatia in the 1990s, and that he is a protected person. This is a very sensitive matter, and that’s why good communication is needed to prepare such a visit,” Grlic-Radman said.

The Serbian protest note, which the charge d’affaires at the Croatian embassy in Belgrade refused to accept, was “more about the past than about the future,” Grlic-Radman assessed. Hina did not report what the note said.

Grlic-Radman added that in the note Serbia “inflated the number of people killed in Jasenovac, even though scientists have established their number and their names.”

“Efforts are being made to blame the Croat people, which reminds us of the early 1990s when preparations were made through the media to dehumanize the Croat people and justify the Serbian aggression,” Grlic-Radman said, noting that “the Russian propaganda machine is now using the same methods to justify the invasion of Ukraine.”

Grlic-Radman said that Croatia had condemned all the fascist crimes committed on its soil, “while Serbia had not.”