"We must not forget how much benefit we had gained from Operation Storm," said the Croat member of the Bosnian tripartite presidency, in response to criticism from his Serb counterpart Nebojsa Radmanovic over his congratulatory note he sent to Zagreb.
"True, there were crimes and nobody negates that; perpetrators of crimes committed against Serbs during Operation Storm were, are being and will be prosecuted. However, this does not belittle the historical and political significance of that operation for the Republic of Craotia which has the every right to observe it as its great victory. It also has significance for us in Bosnia-Herzegovina as Operation Storm created preconditions for the liberation of a larger part of the country in 1995," Komsic said in his interview which the Sarajevo-based Oslobodjenje daily released on Friday.
Operation Storm helped the western Bosnian enclave to break the months-long encirclement imposed by Serb forces.
Komsic denied Radmanovic's claim that he had he had breached the constitution with the congratulatory note.
As in previous years, the Bosnian presidency's Serb member Radmanovic, criticised Komsic's congratulatory note two days ago, saying that the statement would cause additional problems in Bosnia.
On an earlier occasion, Radmanovic said that a large number of Serbs were murdered or expelled in Operation Storm.