23.04.2018.
Vučić: There will be reciprocal measures
- As far as I understand, he is banned from entering because of the statements he made. I would like and I wish it were not accidental. I wish it were not the case that someone in the European Union is introducing verbal delict and the right to decide arbitrarily whether he likes someone or not, whether he likes someone's opinion or not - the President said when he was asked to comment the recent ban on the entry of Defence Minister Aleksandar Vulin into Croatia.
He recalled that he had said that he would not say a single bad word for 100 days and that he would stick with it.
- Serbia as sovereign and as an independent country will definitely react with reciprocal measures, which will be decided by the Serbian Government at its next session. As far as we are concerned, we will continue to try to build better relations - President Vučić said, stressing that he was supposed to receive more representatives of the Croatian state and certain associations that day, and they did not want to do it.
President Vučić pointed out that there is an impression that the Serbs are forbidden to speak about Jasenovac, the execution site of the most horrifying and most lenient crimes in the past 100 years in the territory of former Yugoslavia.
- But if that is the case, and if the Serbs cannot visit their execution sites and if not even the names of those who died there can be written, then we will consider in Serbia to do a job that we were not able to systematically do since the Second World War, which is to list the victims of Jadovno and Prebilovci and Golubnjača and Jasenovac, as well as all other victims, and to create here the Holocaust museums, museums that would speak about the terrible suffering of the Serbian people - Vučić said, adding that the Serbian people is unique in the Balkans by not escaping from talking about the crimes that have been committed by members of our nation.
- The Government will definitely take reciprocal measures. Do you really think that it is possible for you to chastise and humiliate the representatives of the Government? - the President asked, adding that Serbia always brings reciprocal measures, but that it has never been the first to provoke.
He pointed out that Croatia is not satisfied how Šešelj's behaviour was condemned in Serbia, and this is a situation they did not witness, but which was condemned by everyone, while on the other hand, Croatia banned the movement of the minister in the Serbian Government because they did not like what he said.
- Aleksandar Vulin did not say that I was the one who decided on the sovereignty of Croatia, but he said that I was the one who could tell him not to go to Croatia, and not someone else. It did not occur to him or anyone else that someone might think of forbidding someone else from entering Croatia. Imagine that it comes to our mind to forbid the entry of a Croatian minister into Serbia because we do not like his statements, the President said, pointing out that reciprocity is something that is expected, because the state and its mechanisms exist first and foremost, to show elemental respect for one's own country.
- You need to show that you exist as a state, otherwise you do not need the state - the President of the Republic said.
