Fascist songs and frozen conflict: Vucic explains his stance

Fascist songs and frozen conflict: Vucic explains his stance

The Croatian football team on Sunday lost the final game to France (4-2). Marko Perkovic aka Thompson, a Croatian performer who glorifies Ustashas in his songs, was present in the team bus traveling from the airport in Zagreb to the central parts of the town where the celebration was organized, and he was also present at the celebration itself.

Speaking to Serbian reporters in Paris on Tuesday, after his meeting with the French president, Vucic said it was his job to have "good, and ever better relations with Zagreb."

Vucic added that he "has the right not to support (the football team of) Croatia" and added that he would "not say a single ugly word because Serbia needs good and better relations in the future."

"I reacted after the first game (when Croatian players celebrated with an Ustasha song). At all times I showed respect toward the Croats, I said they played excellent football. I said, as everyone has the right to support them, my right is not to. Have I offended anyone? No," he said.

The president remarked hat (Croats) in 1992 (presumably in Bosnia-Herzegovina) burned down the homes of his uncles, aunts, and his father, as well as a house he built together with is brother and father. The president said that 1941 was "difficult" for Serbia - namely, the country was occupied by Nazi Germans and their allies - and observed that Marko Perkovic sings about 1945 - the year they were defeated - as the bad for the Croatian people.

"Next time there will be the same songs. What's that by (Thompson), 'Geni kamena' ("stone genes") - "'45 was no good, they dispersed us around the world'. For some people '41 was hard, ugly, desperate. For us '45 was the year of liberation from German Nazism, Croatian, Italian, Bulgarian, and Hungarian fascism," the president added.

Vucic was also asked to comment on Kosovo PM Ramush Haradinaja' statement that a partition of territory would lead to a new war, to say that he "does not wish to talk about war - and Serbia will be preserved from conflict."

According to him, Serbia will have Emmanuel Macron's support in finding a compromise solution for Kosovo, while he "hopes for German Chancellor Angela Merkel's support," and added that "some hope exists."

"If frozen conflict remains in Kosovo, count on no European perspective, count on less investments," he said.

Vucic also criticized those thinking that Serbia should "flex its muscles":

"To flex our muscles with what? With the zero MiGs in service that you (presumably addressing his predecessors in power in Serbia) left me, with two old helicopters, with old rifles? And whose children should I send? Even today when we have much more arms we are not flexing our muscles, because we don't have children to spare. And those arms serve to us as a deterring factor against any lunatic who might think about conquering Serbia,"