The press conference was prompted by Mesic's recent interview with Croatian Radio and his comments on Djapic's criticism of the Croatian government's response to the statement by Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica that the Croatian army operation "Storm", which crushed the Serb rebellion in central Croatia in 1995, was a crime that has gone unpunished.
Djapic reiterated that the Croatian government had failed to respond to Kostunica's statement promptly and that its response was ineffective.
Djapic asked Mesic what he had done in his numerous contacts with top Serbian state officials to improve the position of the Croatian minority in Serbia and settle the border issue.
The HSP leader claimed that those meetings had not produced any results and that Serbia had emerged stronger from them, while Croatia was weakened by last month's incident in Biljani Donji, when four Croat men stoned houses of Serb returnees, and Kostunica's position on Operation Storm.
As long as the positions of Serbian politicians on the military aggression against Croatia and victims of that aggression are not clear, it is questionable how the remaining issues can be dealt with, Djapic said, adding that this should be a line below which Croatia should not go.
Djapic said that Croatia had also failed to respond properly to the discovery of video tapes showing atrocities allegedly committed by Bosnian army forces at the time of Operation Storm.
The HSP wants every crime to be investigated, but it also wants the Croatian government to respond in a timely fashion to indicate that it was mainly the Bosnian army that was involved in that affair and not the Croatian army, and that all that cannot downplay the nature of Operation Storm as a legitimate military and police operation. That is the key question that needs an answer, Djapic said.
Serbian diplomacy has been on the offensive as of late because since the start of normalisation of relations with Belgrade a question has not been raised as to who is responsible for the wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, he added.
Djapic further said that the position of the Croatian people in Bosnia-Herzegovina had never been more difficult than it was today and that President Mesic had no policy towards the neighbouring country.
Djapic also noted that Croatia had still not found the right answer to what he described as acts of provocation from Slovene Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, who he said had been systematically repeating that Croatia would not be able to join the European Union without Slovenia's support and that its support would be conditional on Croatia making concessions in the dispute over border delimitation in the Bay of Piran.