The president said that today's ceremony was being held against the backdrop of the ICTY judgement in the case of Croatian generals Ante Gotovina, Mladen Markac and Ivan Cermak which he described as an unjust verdict.
I know that unfortunately crimes were committed and that somebody must answer for them but the term "joint criminal enterprise" is unacceptable, the Croatian head of state said.
We are a law-based country and we know what we must do but we do not accept political and historical aspects of the judgement, Josipovic said adding that he was confident that in the further proceedings the truth would come to light.
I am confident that Croatia will bring to justice perpetrators of all crimes committed during the war, he said.
Regardless of the judgement, the Homeland Defence War was a defensive war and there is no verdict which can alter that, he stressed.
The head of the association of war veterans from the 4th Guard Brigade, Bozo Zadro, said that 7,000 troops had passed through the brigade, of whom 194 were killed, five are still listed as missing and 1,400 were wounded in the war.
He said they were proud of having been part of troops under General Gotovina.
Criticising the ICTY ruling, Zadro called on President Josipovic, the government and parliament to spare no effort to challenge this "monstrous verdict".
Zadro also thanked everybody in Croatia and in the world who stood by the generals, notably the United States.
On 15 April the trial chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) sentenced General Gotovina to 24 years in prison and General Markac to 18 years in prison for their participation in a joint criminal enterprise, the aim of which was to forcibly and permanently remove the Serb population from occupied areas of Croatia during and after Operation Storm, launched on August 4, 1995. The Hague tribunal acquitted the third Croatian general in this case, Ivan Cermak.
The verdicts can be appealed.