"The crucial moment was the signing of the Agreement on the Protection of Rights of the Croat Minority in Serbia and Montenegro and the Serb and Montenegrin minorities in Croatia," Stanicic told Belgrade's Danas daily of Wednesday.
"This is the first official visit of a Croatian prime minister to Serbia and Montenegro, there were no such visits in the other direction. The visit comes at a time when the two countries are ready to make major headway in the development of bilateral relations and when there are no obstacles to advancing those relations in every respect, political, economic or cultural," the ambassador said, adding that all outstanding issues were addressed and that "agreement was reached on ways to solve them".
"The political message of all participants in the talks was that Croatia and Serbia and Montenegro must not burden themselves with the past, but develop relations in all areas and solve all outstanding issues simultaneously," Stanicic said. He said that the two sides supported the continuation of the work of a joint commission in charge of establishing the border, reached agreement on cooperation within Atlantic integration processes, and stated that Croatia and Serbia and Montenegro were "mature countries which can settle their relations on their own, without international tutorship".
The return of land registers and documents taken from the Croatian town of Dvor na Uni "is a big gesture" as is the return of a collection of books from the Franciscan monastery in Vukovar, Stanicic said, adding that the two sides also reached agreement on starting the transfer of war crimes convicts, which he said was extremely positive.