Speaking for Saturday's issue of Politika, Jeremic said convening the discussion was not directed against Croatia or at deepening rifts. "I'm confident the discussion will help in what The Hague has failed, namely to step up reconciliation and encourage a turn to a peaceful future."
Jeremic said "the discussion on international criminal tribunals was not planned but imposed itself after the shocking decision of the Appeals Chamber in The Hague, which was handed down by narrow outvoting (because) one man's vote legitimised the injustice done to a quarter of a million people in war."
He said it would be wrong to allow a historic judgment "on such tragic events" to be made without a prior discussion before the world public, and that "it is in the interest of the entire international community to openly talk about how much such tribunals, as bodies of the UN, have fulfilled the purpose for which they were set up."
Serbia's former foreign minister went on to say that the recent acquittal of Croatian generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac "shocked a large number of people around the world" and that he had consulted his associates before convening a UN General Assembly open discussion for April 10, 2013.
His decision has met with resistance in some Western countries.
Jeremic said the conclusions of thematic discussions become an official UN document sent to member countries and all interested parties, "available to the international community and historians."
"I wouldn't be surprised if the sudden putting of this topic on the agenda resulted in dissatisfaction and pressures but they won't make us give up. It isn't rational to expect that Gotovina and Markac will be returned to prison but the messages from the discussion, which will touch on many aspects of the Hague tribunal's work, will become an international document," he told Politika.