The leader of the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS) and member of parliament, Milorad Pupovac, on Thursday visited Vukovar to pay tribute to innocent Vukovar victims, noting that "those who think commemorating all victims in Vukovar is a bad thing are wrong," without specifying who was he referring to.

Pupovac visited the eastern city ahead of the day commemorating the city’s fall into the hands of the Yugoslav People’s Army and Serb paramilitaries on 18 November 1991.

“We placed into the Danube one wreath for the Serb victims and one for the Croat victims. We laid a wreath at the Ovcara memorial for all people brutally killed there while here in the Church of St. Nicholas, a month after it was consecrated by Patriarch Profirije, who expressed sympathy for the residents of this city, both Croats and Serbs, we lit candles,” Pupovac said.

The SDSS leader said that those who think that it was inappropriate to commemorate all victims in Vukovar were wrong.

“They are wrong to think that by commemorating victims by the Danube we have any other intention but to remember and recognize the victims, or that by going to Ovcara we have some other intentions,” Pupovac said after visiting the Church of St. Nicholas.

Asked by reporters if he would be tomorrow in Vukovar in the procession held on the occasion of Vukovar Remembrance Day, Pupovac said that he had already been in the procession and that he would go again. “We will be in the procession when we make a decision to be in it. Our presence here today is as if we are in the procession,” he said in his avoidance of answering the question.

In a comment on the issue of persons gone missing in the 1990s war, Pupovac said that the issue should be dealt with “outside the context of political relations between Croatia and Serbia.”

“We are working on the restoration of talks between Croatia and Serbia, but unfortunately without any results over the past year. Political obstacles are unfortunately being taken into account too much while humanitarian and human needs are not at all. That is the main reason why there is no progress,” he said.

He stressed that over the past few years the Serb community in Croatia has had good cooperation with Deputy Prime Minister and War Veterans Minister Tomo Medved, whose ministry is in charge of missing persons.

Pupovac paid tribute to the Vukovar victims in the company of SDSS MP Boris Milosevic and Marica Seatovic, head of an association of families of missing persons.