BELGRADE, Aug 3 (Hina) - Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica has said that Croatia's 1995 liberation operation "Storm" had expelled Croatian Serbs, but that now Yugoslavia and Croatia have to build neighbourly relations.
BELGRADE, Aug 3 (Hina) - Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica has
said that Croatia's 1995 liberation operation "Storm" had expelled
Croatian Serbs, but that now Yugoslavia and Croatia have to build
neighbourly relations. #L#
In a written statement delivered to Belgrade's Beta news agency,
Kostunica says that Aug. 4 marks the seventh anniversary of the
Croatian Serbs' leaving the Krajina region.
"They were expelled by the brutal Croatian police-military
operation 'Storm', which one part of the democratic world helped
without objection, while the other, regardless of whether
pragmatically or cowardly, considered it best to close its eyes
before everything that was happening," reads the statement.
Kostunica further says that the Serbian regime of the time believed
that it would somehow benefit from the Croatian Serbs' tragedy.
Kostunica maintains that "Krajina was a victim, as much of
conflicting radical national ideas and the exclusiveness of
Croatia's policy at the time, as of the long-standing Serbian
discord, gullibility and inability of many Serbian politicians
to... put the common good above petty personal interests."
The Yugoslav President claims that the exiled Croatian Serbs are
entitled to return to pre-war homes, or sell them and build a normal
life in Yugoslavia, which he says has the obligation to help them.
Kostunica says that Yugoslavia and Croatia have to build their
relations on "sound foundations... polite neighbourly relations
(which) respect the basic rules of conduct among civilised
people."
(hina) ha