"Dispute does not close door to reconciliation"

"Dispute does not close door to reconciliation"

THE HAGUE -- With their genocide dispute before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Serbia and Croatia have not closed the door to the reconciliation.

This was heard from the head of Serbia’s legal team, Saša Obradović.

"If Croatia really cares about what their agent said here, and that is reconciliation based on historical facts, then we can say we have given information that can be verified. Let them check if the data provided by (the documentation and information center) Veritas (concerning the victims) are correct; it would be the best way to reconcile the two peoples,” Obradović told Tanjug.

“Serbia’s legal team has been representing Serbia with dignity from the very first day, when our lawyer Novak Lukić appeared in front of a witness from Croatia and expressed regret for all the victims,” he said.

Obradović noted that the Serbian side "has shown the dignity of people who are willing to confront the past and the crimes committed."

“We were showing here that the crimes committed in eastern Slavonia were not genocide, but we did not hide the fact that these acts are crimes. We are not the type of people who celebrate crimes in Ovčara, Lovas or Skabrnja, unlike celebrations of Operation Storm in Croatia,” said the head of the Serbian legal team.

Obradović said that Serbia urged the international community, which founded the ICJ, to “open eyes for the crimes that were committed against the Serb people in Croatia.”

In this way, Serbia has shown, perhaps better than ever over the past 20 years, that it cares about the Serbs from Croatia and their tragedy and about representing their...