I don't want to contribute to the escalation of debates, Jeremic said adding that Serbia was fully committed to regional cooperation and that one should look into the past before heading towards the future.
During an Adriatic-Ionian Initiative meeting in Italy on Wednesday, Jeremic said Serbia was encouraged by Josipovic having said in the Bosnian state parliament that he deeply regretted that Croatia's policy led by Franjo Tudjman had caused human suffering and divisions in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Following Jeremic's statement, the Croatian foreign ministry warned that he abused Josipovic's speech in which the Croatian head of state said that he deeply regretted that Croatia's policies in the 1990s had contributed to human suffering and divisions.
Responding to Jeremic's statement, Josipovic recalled that he had made no mention of any person in his speech in Sarajevo and that he warned that "policies made mistakes in Bosnia-Herzegovina".
The man who is to be blamed the most for all crimes committed in the area of former Yugoslavia is Slobodan Milosevic, Josipovic said in his response on Thursday, adding that his speech in Sarajevo was not an act of measuring guilt but was "an encouragement to cease trying to outdo each other over the past and begin outdoing each other in the present and the future in contributing to peace, particularly as regards Bosnia-Herzegovina and its being organised as a functioning state of equal peoples."
Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor and former President Stjepan Mesic joined in the condemnation of Jeremic's statement.
In this context Mesic called on Serbia to admit to having been the aggressor in the region.
Serbia must undergo a catharsis like the Germans after World War II did, Mesic said, adding that Jeremic should know that it was Milosevic who already in his speech in Kosovo Polje in 1989 "outlined his plans about conflicts in the area and a greater ethnically cleansed Serbia".