Croatian minister to attend Belgrade summit

ZAGREB - Croatian Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Vesna Pusic will travel to Belgrade for the summit between China and 16 central and southeast European countries, to be held on December 16-17.

Pusic will attend the meeting of the prime ministers of China and 16 European countries in Belgrade, the Croatian Foreign Ministry said on its Twitter account on Wednesday.

Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic announced on November 28 that he will not be going to Belgrade because of the "Seselj case".

He criticised the Serbian authorities for failing to distance themselves officially from what he described as Vojislav Seselj's rhetoric of war-mongering and Greater Serbia.

Seselj has been granted provisional release by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

The Serbian Radical Party (SRS) leader returned to Belgrade on November 12 after 12 years in detention in the ICTY without a sentence.

On November 18, the anniversary of the fall of Vukovar in the armed clashes for Croatia's secession from the former Yugoslavia, Seselj said that the SRS is not relinquishing a Serbian Vukovar or the Republic of Serb Krajina, and that it will do everything to make it a part of Greater Serbia once again.

This caused furious reactions by Croatian officials, who said that Seselj is a potentially dangerous "disruptive factor" in the region, launching a campaign for his return to detention in the ICTY.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic and Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said that the SRS is a marginal extra-parliamentary party in Serbia and that its ideas have no impact on the country's policy.

Dacic noted that Serbia has clearly distanced itself from...