"I think that as the leader of one of the parties in the ruling coalition in Croatia, Stanimirovic has a special obligation to work on reconciliation and hence must be careful about what he says," President Josipovic said in Zagreb on Tuesday during his visit to the Faculty of Economics.
"I think that it is absolutely unfair to single out individual cases when speaking about the causes of the war (in the 1990s)," Josipovic said in response to reporters' questions.
"The war began with the implementation of Milosevic's policy. This is the crucial beginning and cause of the war," the Croatian president said, adding that this did not mean that one should turn a blind eye to the murder of Serb civilians and crimes against them.
Stanimirovic, the leader of the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS), which is a junior partner in the ruling coalition, told the Serbian press that "until now it has always been said that Serbs started that war, which is not true." Stanimirovic said that apart from civilians and wounded people, there were also Croatian soldiers in the Vukovar Hospital before the town fell into the hands of Serb rebels supported by the Yugoslav People's Army in mid-November 1991.
Josipovic also criticised Stanimirovic for comments on soldiers in the Vukovar Hospital as wrong and imprudent.
"Even if there had been soldiers in the hospital, they should not have been killed. This is crucial, because an unprecedented crime was committed there and it deserves our condemnation," Josipovic said.