He informed the minority officials of the contents of talks he had held with his host, Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, earlier in the day.
Bilateral cooperation is important for efforts to solve the problem of a list of suspected war criminals. The list should be sorted out by punishing those who really committed war crimes and by eliminating the names of those who are innocent, said participants in the meeting with the minority's representatives.
Commenting on the list of the suspected war criminals, Kostunica labelled this topic as very sensitive, adding that this problem should be solved gradually and through more frequent meetings between justice ministers of Serbia and Croatia.
He said that he saw Sanader as an interlocutor willing to cooperate.
Kostunica made this statement after the leader of the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS), Vojislav Stanimirovic, asked the authorities in Belgrade to help solve the problem of a list of about 900 people, accused of war crimes in Croatia. Stanimirovic himself, who is also a member of the Croatian parliament, suggested that those who committed war crimes should be brought to justice while innocent people should be freed of responsibility.
Another senior official of the SDSS party, Milorad Pupovac, pointed out the problem of the return of refugees.
He urged Serbia to become "a source of strengthening" of the Serb community in Croatia.
Pupovac also suggested that funds which Serbia had so far used as assistance to Croatian Serb refugees who found shelter in that country should be shifted to the encouragement of their return to Croatia.
The meeting also focused on poor economic conditions in formerly war-stricken areas.
In this context representatives of local government said that houses had been reconstructed and the Croatian government as well as the European Union were offering assistance. However, a lack of jobs is what hampers the process of return as people cannot live off aid and cannot have better prospects in underdeveloped and previously war-stricken areas, they said.
A State Secretary in the Croatian Education and Science Ministry, Slobodan Uzelac, proposed that Serbia and Croatia formulate joint requests for funds from the EU pre-accession funds. This would enable the two countries to use funds more efficiently for development projects or projects such as the marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of world-famous inventor and scientist Nikola Tesla, a Croatian Serb born in the village of Smiljan in the Croatian region of Lika.
A representative of ethnic Croatians in Serbia, Josip Pekanovic, who arrived in Zagreb as a member of the delegation led by Kostunica, said that Serbian Croats were willing to cooperate and he arranged a visit of Croatian Serbs to the National Council of Croats in Serbia in the near future.