"Celebrating this year Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day, we proudly mark the tenth anniversary of the military and police Operation Storm. The result of the Operation was the liberation of the city of Knin and the largest part of the occupied territories which had been until then occupied for five years," Mesic wrote in his message adding that while these days the country is reviving the thrill caused by the military victory, "we pay tribute to those who participated in the operation, soldiers, officers noncommissioned officers and particularly to those who were killed then."
The Operation Storm meant the historical confirmation of the ability of the Croatian people to establish, defend and preserve its independence and statehood. It also created prerequisites for stopping the war not only in Croatia but also in Bosnia-Herzegovina as well as for the peaceful reintegration of the Croatian Danube Region into the constitutional and legal order of the Republic of Croatia.
Marking that great day we also think about our present time. The purpose of victories and successes is not to seal the past but to open up new perspectives for the life. Preserving its national and historical identity, the Republic of Croatia is firmly committed to the ideal of being a country of human rights, democracy, and the European living standards and to becoming a member of the European Union where it really belongs to, mesic said in his message, released on Wednesday.