Cooperation and normalisation of relations should be continued, refugee returns should be encouraged and accelerated, national minorities should be protected, cooperation with the Hague war crimes tribunal must become full and unconditional, border passage without visa requirements should be institutionalised, and all obstacles which may hamper the successful normalisation of relations between the three countries must be removed with the aim of accomplishing the common goal of membership in the European Union. Disputable issues, including border problems, should be solved through talks and in the spirit of good neighbourly relations, including temporary solutions as a step towards lasting solutions, reads the document.
"Our European path and everything that it represents and envisages is not and must not be the result of anyone exerting pressure on us. Everything we do in the context of adoption of European standards and promotion of European values, we do and must do for our own sake and for the sake of our own future," President Mesic said at the meeting, stressing the importance of NGOs. "Our future is not in returning to the past or in negating or covering up the past, but only in accepting the truth about the past". Being aware of this is one of the crucial preconditions for "stepping through Europe's door", Mesic said.
"The truth about the past also means apologising, admitting responsibility and expressing regret. Responsibility and guilt can and must be established exclusively on an individual basis before a court, whether international or domestic. Peoples are not guilty. It is a fact, however, that crimes were committed in the name of peoples. It is therefore logical that apologies are made in the name of peoples and countries. Those who express apologies should be accepted in good faith, and not be attacked or boycotted," Mesic said, calling for assuming responsibility to prevent crimes from the recent wars from reoccurring.
"Our trilateral declaration shows and proves our maturity for a European future. Let this be our message also to those amongst us who would prefer to see us isolated and turned against one another, as well as to Europe, where some still doubt if we belong among them," Mesic said, adding that united Europe "is a millennium project which can be carried out by the current generation".
Opening the meeting, Serbia and Montenegro President Svetozar Marovic urged the prosecution
of all who committed war crimes, not only in Srebrenica, adding that crimes should never be forgotten, regardless of their perpetrators and victims. "This is why the case of General Mladic must be closed as soon as possible," he said, adding that Serbia and Montenegro was determined to fulfil its obligations regarding justice as the only way to "remove the remnants of the legacy of the tragic wars in which the former Yugoslavia broke up".
"We must be open and sincere in acquainting the young generations with the truth about events from the past, we are obliged to mend the broken ties and establish new relations and cooperation because we are responsible for the future of our peoples and states," the Chairman of the Bosnian Presidency, Borislav Paravac, said.
Surrounded by numerous reporters, President Mesic said after the meeting it was a fact that he had recently postponed his visit to Serbia and Montenegro after a Chetnik gathering at Ravna Gora, but he did come to attend the "Igman Initiative" meeting.
"I have nothing against Serbia awarding Chetniks various benefits, but it is a fact that Chetniks were on the side of the occupying forces, they were quislings just like the Ustasha in Croatia. Everybody knows which side they were on at the end of World War II," Mesic said, adding that it was up to Serbian citizens to condemn the Srebrenica genocide, the gravest atrocity after WWII. Commenting on the celebration of the Croatian military-police operations "Flash" and "Storm", Mesic said that they were legitimate operations "which solved the problem of occupied Croatian areas".
"Crimes did happen, that is true, and we must shed light on them and punish the perpetrators. Crime has no nationality," Mesic said.
The Igman Initiative, which consists of some 140 NGOs from Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia and Montenegro, accepted at the start of the two-day meeting a proposal for all countries in the region to declare July 11, the day of the Srebrenica massacre, a remembrance day in tribute to all innocent victims of the wars in the former Yugoslavia.