At the invitation of Mr. Zoran Basaraba, the Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia and Montenegro...

At the invitation of Mr. Zoran Basaraba, the Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia and Montenegro, a meeting was held on 16 June in Belgrade with Mr. Davor Božinović, Ambassador of the Republic of Croatia, on the occasion of the attack against the building of the Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in Belgrade. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia and Montenegro characterised this case as “an incident without any justification” and has fully assumed its responsibility for this negligence.

While expressing the official position of both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia and Montenegro and of the state community, Secretary Basaraba stated that this incident has nothing to do with the politics as it concerns a negligence on their part for which they assume full responsibility and added that they will do everything possible so that it does not happen again. According to the information available to the Serbian-Montenegrin side, it was an act of vandalism by hooligans i.e. children at the age of 15. The Secretary of the Serbian-Montenegrin Foreign Ministry positively evaluated the opinion of the people who were watching the Croatian and Serbian TV programmes, and was pleasantly surprised by the responsibility with which the sport reporters on both sides commented on the events on the ground, which he considers a step forward.

The Croatian side evaluated this event as a serious problem and expressed its dissatisfaction with the lack of any response by the competent bodies of Serbia and Montenegro.

By demanding from the competent bodies of the Republic of Serbia that perpetrators be punished, Mr. Dragiša Burzan, Foreign Minister of Montenegro, condemned the hooligan behaviour in front of the Embassy of the Republic in Belgrade, as expressed in the letter forwarded to the Croatian Foreign Minister on 16 June 2003.

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