Sanader was commenting on a statement the Index.hr web portal published yesterday which Mesic reportedly made in the early 1990s. The statement, in which Mesic allegedly glorified the Ustasha ideology, met with condemnations and doubts among politicians, while the President's Office refused to comment.
"Croatia is tired from discussions about the past and if someone wanted to harm us, anyone, they would constantly bring up the discussion about the past, who was where and what they said. I think that we have all finally matured in Croatia to focus on the present and the future, without forgetting the past, which was bloody and difficult and a past of rifts within the Croatian national being," Sanader said ahead of a commemoration of the seventh anniversary of President Franjo Tudjman's death.
"I am waiting for the time when we will no longer bother with the past, not in order to forget it, but to learn from it and leave it to historians," said Sanader.