"The fact that 250,000 Serbs were expelled from Croatia in a matter of days can't be called an incident. It was ethnic cleansing. Killing 2,500 people is certainly not an individual incident but an organised crime," read the press release.
It added that the Hague war crimes tribunal's indictments against Croatian generals "unequivocally link the state and military leadership of Croatia at the time with the crimes that were committed in Operation Storm from 4 to 26 August 1995".
Tadic reiterated that he condemned every crime that was committed and that he was against negating one crime by mentioning another. He added that Serbia and Montenegro's good neighbourly relations with other countries were important for stability in the region, and that "facing the crimes that were committed is conducive to the final reconciliation and further advancement" of bilateral relations.
In an interview with Belgrade's tabloid Kurir on Friday, Tadic requested that on August 5, the tenth anniversary of Storm, other countries' leaders condemn the crime against Serbs in Croatia in 1995 just like he condemned the crimes in Srebrenica.
Reacting to this statement yesterday, Croatian President Stjepan Mesic said the crime in Bosnia's Srebrenica was the biggest in the history of this region because 8,000 people were killed only because they were not Serbs, and that it could not be equated with individual excesses in Operation Storm.
"There's no justification for the crimes committed at Srebrenica, Skabrnja and Ovcara because they were planned and brutal crimes committed in order to cleanse areas and achieve the genocidal plan under which all Serbs would be able to live in one state," said Mesic.
He stated that Croatia condemned every crime because no one had the right to do anything that was unacceptable in the name of the Croatian people. He added this was why everyone who carried out, planned or commanded a crime, or knew that crimes were committed but did nothing about it, would be prosecuted in Croatia. "We are prosecuting such people now regardless of who they are."
Mesic said it was important to remember that no Croat committed a war crime in Serbia, whereas "rivers of Serbian volunteers, accompanied by tanks, arrived in Croatia trying to expand Serbia's territory".
Asked if Tadic's statement would undermine Croatia-Serbia relations, Mesic answered in the negative, saying the statement was given because of the situation in Serbia, where he added some still thought the Serbian border should stretch to Virovitica, Karlovac and Karlobag in Croatia.