ZAGREB, 21 May, 2022 – President Zoran Milanović reiterated on Friday that Croatia has to block Sweden and Finland’s NATO accession until Bosnia and Herzegovina Croats attain equality, pointing out that an above-average number of BiH Croats had died in the Homeland War and that a nation that forgets it was “doomed”.
Milanović stressed in Zabok that it was in the Croatian national interest for the election law in Bosnia and Herzegovina to be changed in order to avoid Croats to be outvoted in elections by the more numerous Bosniaks, adding that blocking Finland and Sweden’s application for NATO membership was the only way to achieve that.
He think that his policy was “the only way” to protect the rights of BiH Croats and that “anyone who doesn’t understand that, doesn’t understand what Croatia is”.
“This is the only way and probably the last chance,” he said.
The Croatian president dismissed objections that Croatia could not achieve anything by blocking the accessions, noting that it wasn’t true that the Slovenian policy of blocking Croatia’s accession to the EU because of a territorial dispute was not successful.
“If we get what Slovenia got against Croatia, that’s great. Slovenia got everything it wanted, it got a rigged arbitration agreement with legal fabrications that was supposed to draw water to their mill. To their chagrin, they drowned, and some good Croats who did their job contributed to that,” Milanović said.
He also said that Turkey, which has impeded Finland and Sweden’s NATO accession over their support to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), with Ankara has been in conflict for decades, would also achieve a lot, despite its demands being “extreme”, while Croatia was just seeking fundamental justice, that is, respecting the Dayton Peace Agreement.
Turkey, in addition to ending support for the PKK and lifting the ban on Finnish and Swedish exports of certain weapons to Ankara is asking to rejoin the F-35 production programme, from which it was expelled by the USA for purchasing a Russian S-400 anti-missile system.
In that context, he also said he expected that “the Croatian media understand the basic Croatian needs” and that, for example, the BBC still understood that it was in Britain’s interest to be against Russia, while Croatia, on the other hand, had the HRT, “which protects Plenković”.
Swedish MEP Charlie Weimers of the Sweden Democrats told Milanović a day earlier on Twitter that vetoes went both ways and that Croatia received billions of euros from the European budget.
Milanović today responded that he was not interested in “what a fanatical Islamophobe is saying.”
Milanović described him as a Swedish Fascist and called him a scum, adding that Croatia did not depend on his money.
Serbia is destroying itself
Milanović also commented on the decision of Serbian prosecutors to issue an indictment against four Croatian Air Force pilots for war crimes because during 1995’s Operation Storm they allegedly ordered a missile attack on a refugee convoy outside Bosanski Petrovac and Bosanski Novi.
“Serbia is destroying itself,” said Milanović, adding that he wanted to help it on its European path, and it was pursuing a policy that collided with the accession framework.
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