Vucic: We would like to be friends with everyone in Western Balkans, but Croatia wants to dominate

Printscreen: RTS1

President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic said last evening in New York that Serbia wants friendship with all the countries in the Western Balkans, but that some, especially Croats, want to dominate the region and are angry that they cannot do that, because our country is  making more and more progress.

Recommended

After a series of meetings on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Vucic took journalists' questions, and was asked to commented on the allegations in the Croatian media regarding the speech he gave the day before at the UN, and that the Croats were "bothered" by the fact he mentioned Nazism - to which he replied by asking why they don't mind chanting "Za dom spremni" ("For home ready" a  salute made popular in the Nazi-allied WW2 Independent State of Croatia, NDH).

"They don't mind chanting 'Za dom spremni'. They like to sing it and howl it every day, but it bothers them when someone says that's a Nazi salute. But what else is it? A Partisan one? It is an Ustasha (NDH regime) salute, because they were the worst Nazis. The most monstrous Nazis. Well, read the book by the permanent representative of the German state in Zagreb, and you'll see what he said about all that," said Vucic.

When asked why Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia are jointly attacking Serbia in this situation, Vucic stressed that they will always do that whenever given the chance.

"Every time they think they have an opportunity to undermine and destroy Serbia, they will always do it. Every time. Without missing a beat, have no doubt. Whenever they think the moment is right to use something against Serbia, they will use it. Let me explain why: put history aside, put 1941 and 1991 aside, put everything aside. Croats have a desire to be the dominant economic, political and military force in the Western Balkans. That could pass when Serbia was under Tadic (when Boris Tadic was president), when Serbia was unemployed, when Serbia did not have a good growth rate, when Serbia was militarily devastated, then this could pass," said Vucic.

He added that such rhetoric cannot be used and that such dominance cannot be achieved when Serbia is progressing, when it is getting stronger.

"Now someone is angry, pouting, what can I do. And we don't want domination, we want friendship with them, but alas, as they would say, they are not ready for that. They are used to our presidents bragging about how they are fans of Severina (Croatian pop singer), and that's the most important thing for them to say when they talk to Croats, so that the Croats wouldn't get upset if they mentioned Operation Storm or Jasenovac. I cannot, to tell you the truth, Severina cannot be more important to me than Operation Stoem or Jasenovac, so - what can I do? I'm probably, as the Croats say, the wrong president at the wrong time. And every Serb should understand what that means for us," said Vucic.

(Telegraf.rs/Tanjug)