The Office of the President Mesic on Monday issued a press release emphasising that the war crimes in Srebrenica could not be justified by anything, and that they could not be relativised by pointing out crimes which happened as incidents in the wake of the Storm Operation.
In mid-July 1995 Bosnian Serb troops killed some 8,000 local Bosnian Muslims in the enclave of Srebrenica after they took over that town which was at the time a UN safe haven.
At this moment it seems at least groundless to treat qualifications from some indictments, which have been issued by the Hague-based UN war crimes tribunal and which have not been confirmed by any final verdict to date, as historical facts established beyond any doubt, Mesic's Office says responding to Tadic's claims.
The Office says that President Mesic has many times stated that there were crimes committed after the Storm, and emphasised the necessity to establish the responsibility of individuals and ensure the functioning of the rule of law, which means that everybody who has breached the law must be brought to justice and punished regardless of his or her ethnic descent or function in society.
The Office recalls that during his visits to the Israeli parliament as well as to the site of the former Ustasha concentration camp in the Croatian town of Jasenovac, President Mesic apologised in an unequivocal manner to all who were the victims of those who abused the idea of the Croatian state and who killed, persecuted and plundered smearing the Croatian name.
There is nothing to add to this, and all what was stated was not stated for the sake of those visits but as the principle and as a pillar in the treatment of the past and the truth about that past, the Office states in the press release.
The Office recalls that Croatia had all rights including the right stemming from resolutions of the UN General Assembly, to launch the Storm Operation, the tenth anniversary of which will be marked later this week.
The Office also recalls that after the Storm Operation, the Croatian leadership, and first of all President Mesic, on many occasions called on Croatian Serb refugees to return.
The Office points out the fact that the process of the return is going on successfully despite some sporadic incidents, and that the successful completion of the process is linked to efforts to develop increasingly good relations between Zagreb and Belgrade.
"To see such developments it is inevitable to ensure that there is political willingness on the both sides to face the truth about the past, without suppressing facts, without relativising or forging them," the Office of the Croatian President says in the press release.