Dacic: High time for Croatia's anti-Serb hysteria to end

Dacic: High time for Croatia's anti-Serb hysteria to end

At the same time, Dacic called on the Croatian government in a statement to be reasonable and stop destroying the reputation of its own country and inflicting damage on the entire region, Beta reported.

"The rhetoric, the vocabulary and the undisguised hatred emanating from every statement or public appearance they make is no longer a need associated with the election campaign in Croatia, but an expression of a pathological preoccupation with Serbia and an anti-Serb hysteria in Croatia, led by the Croatian government," Dacic said, according to Tanjug.

"Serbia cannot be treated that way, we do not allow anyone to do that - not even the most powerful countries, let alone Croatia, which cannot even protect 10 Cyrillic name plates and where fascist salutes are still heard at public events," Dacic said.

The Serbian foreign minister asked why Croatia was not bragging about it in Brussels, "but is keeping quiet there and taking criticism from the leading people of the EU and U.S. for trying to trip up Serbia?"

"Does the Croatian government have anything else to deal with instead of fanning hatred toward Serbia and Serbs? The fact that Prime Minister Vucic met with the president of Croatia and that we do not allow ourselves to behave like the Croatian government, is a sign of our strength, not weakness," Dacic said.

Croatia wants Serbia to scrap its law on universal jurisdiction over war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia, and outgoing Foreign Minister Miro Kovac said Wednesday Zagreb would use fierce countermeasures if Serbia arrested any Croatian citizen on war crimes charges.

Croatia should first convince the more than ten EU member states that have universal jurisdiction over war crimes, including Germany, Dacic noted.

"How come they did not have a problem with crimes committed in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia being tried in Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland or Germany? Or, how come they did not have a problem when the crimes committed at Ovcara, in Lovas (Croatia) or Zvornik (Bosnia-Herzegovina) were tried under this law," Dacic asked.

He said that "it is easy to spread hatred" and "hard to reconcile people," adding that the "amount of lies about what Serbia allegedly needs to do is inversely proportional to what the (EU) criteria really says for the opening of chapters with Serbia."

"Serbia will not let anyone humiliate it," Dacic noted.

With such behavior, Croatia is not becoming a problem for Serbia, but for Europe, he concluded.