(Hina) - Croatia wants to normalise the situation with Serbia and calm tensions after ICTY indictee Vojislav Šešelj set Croatia's flag on fire in Belgrade and after Serbian minister Aleksandar Vulin criticised Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanović, Croatian First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign and European Affairs Minister Vesna Pusić said after the government session on Thursday.
Asked about Croatia's further steps towards Serbia, Pusić said she hoped calming tensions would be the next step, adding that a marginal phenomenon from the past such as war crimes indictee Šešelj was not important now, but that relations between Croatia and Serbia were important.
The Croatian Foreign and European Affairs Ministry on Wednesday sent a protest note to the Serbian Charge d'Affaires in Croatia, Bosa Prodanović, and Croatian Ambassador to Serbia Gordan Markotić has been summoned to Zagreb for consultations, following an incident which Šešelj caused earlier in the day by setting a Croatian flag on fire outside the Hall of Justice in Belgrade.
"Relations between Croatia and Serbia are in the focus of our attention and those relations represent the economic, political and security future. This is our job, our responsibility and this is what we will do," Pusić said.
Pusić said that Croatia had primarily reacted to statements made by a member of the Serbian government, Labour Minister Aleksandar Vulin, about Croatia, General Ante Gotovina, and Prime Minister Milanović, adding that summoning the Croatian ambassador for consultations was a message that such rhetoric was truly damaging to relations in the region and relations between the two countries.
Yesterday's statement by Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić indicates that Serbia too believes that tensions should be calmed, Pusić said, adding that in her opinion, Serbia too wanted to normalise relations with Croatia. We understand to a point the situation they have found themselves in with the Šešelj case, but regardless of that, we all have responsibility towards the region and life in the region, Pusić said.
Serbian PM Vučić said on Wednesday that the incident caused by Šešelj sent a bad message about Serbia and he called for calming tensions, adding that he would talk on the phone with Croatian PM Milanović so that they could call on members of their governments to act reasonably.
Serbian minister Vulin yesterday called on Milanović to "refrain from speaking against Serbia" and rather "get over his vanity", visit Belgrade and speak his mind about Serbian people and Serbia.
"Come to Serbia and meet the 250,000 people expelled during Operation Storm," Vulin told reporters in Jabuka near Belgrade, asking Milanović "to tell the Serbs expelled from Croatia that they did not leave Croatia for economic reasons" but had to run before "former ICTY indictee Ante Gotovina" whom Milanović considers an "angel."
He clearly wanted to send a negative message which disrupts our relations and which is a practice that must stop once and for all, and our reaction is going in that direction, Pusić said.
She underscored that not a single Croatian official would ever use such rhetoric in connection with any country, let alone a neighbouring country.