Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Saturday that by deciding to ban the entry of pro-Serbian and pro-Russian Montenegrin officials Andrija Mandic, Milan Knezevic, and Aleksa Becic, Croatia has shown that there is no difference between the current Croatia and the former NDH (Independent State of Croatia).

The Croatian Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, in a note sent earlier to the Embassy of Montenegro in Zagreb, informed official Podgorica that Zagreb has declared the President of the Montenegrin Assembly Mandic, Member of Parliament Knezevic, and Deputy Prime Minister of Montenegro Becic, personae non gratae in Croatia.

The decision was made after Montenegrin parliamentarians adopted a Resolution on the genocide in the Jasenovac, Dachau, and Mauthausen camps.

“How did it not occur to you that by banning these people from entering, they fell into their own trap and showed that they make no difference compared to the NDH (Nazi-puppet government) and any other Croatian state that ever existed,” Vucic said on Saturday to Belgrade journalists in Paris, reported the Tanjug agency.

Vucic also commented on the statement by former Croatian MEP Tonino Picula that Montenegro will face problems on its path to European integration, and that Mandic and Knezevic, leaders of the Democratic People’s Party (DNP), are proactive in aligning with the policies of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Vucic.

He said he “does not understand” how everyone united in the defense of the NDH and the defense of Ustase crimes from World War II.

“Why don’t they say – we committed a crime, a genocide against those Serbs, and we are sorry. Neither Picula nor others are at all uncomfortable invoking the legal and political continuity from the NDH,” Vucic said, responding to journalists’ questions in Paris after the opening of the Serbian House within the framework of the Olympic Games.