BELGRADE, Sept 21 (Hina) - Croatian President Stipe Mesic told Novi Sad's daily "Vojvodina" in an interview issued Thursday he will be happy when he will be able to visit a democratic Serbia. In the interview, whose excerpts were
published by Belgrade's news agency "Beta", Mesic said "there is no reason for Serbia to lag behind" on the path of other European peoples, adding he "will be happy when I will be able to visit Belgrade in a democratic atmosphere". Serbia must make a step forward "so the public would realise that Serbia should not wage wars for others' territories to make Serbs outside Serbia happy," Mesic told the daily. "Serbia should open the gates of cooperation with its neighbours, especially because there are Serbs on the other side of Serbia's borders," Mesic said. Asked who should extend apologies to whom and why for everything that had occurred in the past ten years, Mesic said "everybody should apolo
BELGRADE, Sept 21 (Hina) - Croatian President Stipe Mesic told Novi
Sad's daily "Vojvodina" in an interview issued Thursday he will be
happy when he will be able to visit a democratic Serbia.
In the interview, whose excerpts were published by Belgrade's news
agency "Beta", Mesic said "there is no reason for Serbia to lag
behind" on the path of other European peoples, adding he "will be
happy when I will be able to visit Belgrade in a democratic
atmosphere".
Serbia must make a step forward "so the public would realise that
Serbia should not wage wars for others' territories to make Serbs
outside Serbia happy," Mesic told the daily.
"Serbia should open the gates of cooperation with its neighbours,
especially because there are Serbs on the other side of Serbia's
borders," Mesic said.
Asked who should extend apologies to whom and why for everything
that had occurred in the past ten years, Mesic said "everybody
should apologise to everybody".
"Croats blames all Serbs and Moslems. Serbs blamed all Croats and
Moslems. Everybody blamed everybody, but in fact, nobody was to
blame because what was in effect was an incorrect policy which was
founded on the idea that a Greater Croatia and a Greater Serbia
should be created on the ruins of the former Yugoslavia," Mesic
asserted.
He stressed leaders had "been creating a new architecture which
Europe and the world did not accept", and added "this policy has
definitely ceased to exist".
Mesic said he was prepared to "apologise only on behalf of all
citizens of Croatia if they had harmed anyone, as the president of
all citizens of Croatia," but stressed he was "not only the
president of Croats".
"Anybody who is guilty must be held responsible. If we hold
accountable those who committed war crimes, and the former
authorities kept them hidden away, the authorities in Serbia cannot
in the future hide those who massacred three hundred people on
Ovcara (near the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar) after they had
taken them out of hospital," Mesic said.
(hina) lml