The Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs a strongly-worded protest note to the charge d’affaires in the Serbian Embassy to Croatia Bosa Prodanović, asking that she forward a request to the Serbian government to punish the individuals responsible for burning a Croatian flag in front of the Croatian Embassy in Belgrade.
Assistant Foreign and European Affairs Minister Željko Kuprešak reiterated it was absolutely unacceptable that accused war criminal Vojislav Šešelj and a few of his followers, undisturbed by the police, had been able to once again set alight the Croatian flag in front of the Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in Belgrade, recalling with their statements the rhetoric of the nineties. We condemn statements of that nature and denounce them entirely. Statements by an accused war criminal, apart from being detrimental to Serbia, jeopardise regional cooperation, relations between countries and their European path, Kuprešak said, adding that the events that preceded the incident did not contribute to deescalating the situation with rational and responsible action, and that speeches by senior Serbian officials were counterproductive to the normalization of relations between countries.
In that context, we consider statements by Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić that by celebrating the Operation Storm Croatia was celebrating the revival of the state left over from Pavelić and recognised only by Hitler entirely untrue, offensive, intolerable and irresponsible.