SARAJEVO, Jan 29 (Hina) - Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic believes that Croatia should pay Serbia war reparations totalling 150 billion euros.
SARAJEVO, Jan 29 (Hina) - Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic
believes that Croatia should pay Serbia war reparations totalling
150 billion euros. #L#
In a statement published on Wednesday by Banja Luka's "Nezavisne
novine" paper, Djindjic said Croatia owed Serbia "perhaps as much
as 150 billion euros" because "it expelled 200,000 innocent people
from their homes in eastern and western Slavonia using MIG jets and
artillery".
Djindjic's statement was a comment on Croatian President Stjepan
Mesic's recent statement to the same paper, who said that Serbia
should pay Croatia damages amounting to up to 15 billion euros.
"If we talk about who owes whom, I believe that issue will take some
time to resolve but this is not the way to open it," Djindjic said
about Mesic's statement.
He added that the authorities in Belgrade could claim damages for
the property of their citizens along the Croatian Adriatic coast
which he said "was confiscated in a barbarous way".
The Serbian official said that "mistakes were made on both sides"
during the war and that insistence on war reparations "could make
Serbia present its arguments that could be surprising to
somebody".
Yugoslavia's legal representative at the International Court of
Justice, Tibor Varadi, has said that he does not believe Croatia
will manage to collect damages from Belgrade.
In a statement to Radio Free Europe Varadi said that horrible things
had happened in Croatia, however, there was no evidence to support
the genocide lawsuit Croatia filed against Yugoslavia with the
court.
(hina) rml