"Brothers and sisters Croats, let's do it this way..."

Dacic on Wednesday also called on what he referred to as "brothers and sisters Croats" to all focus "a little bit on the future."

Dacic said this as a response to Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic stating that "Serbia's EU path leads through Croatia," and that there are "many issues have piled up that must be resolved in order for Serbia to join the EU."

"The path to the EU does not have to lead through Croatia, it can go through Hungary, Romania, Greece - (Plenkovic's statement) is a little self-aggrandizing," Dacic said.

"Since Plenkovic used this term in order to say that Croatia will determine whether Serbia will enter the EU - naturally, Croatia is part of the EU - but anyway the EU would not allow unresolved bilateral problems to be an obstacle to the entry of some other countries," the minister said.

According to him, "there is nothing to talk about - when one knows how Croatia entered the EU with an unresolved border dispute with Slovenia."

"With Zagreb we want the best possible relations. We want the best relationship with Croatia ,but not blackmail. We will not change our basic determination because of Croatia," Dacic said, when asked to comment on Plenkovic's words.

Dacic also assessed that Serbia and Croatia "together could be much stronger."

"Come on, brothers and sisters Croats, let's just focus on the future a little bit. What's left to talk about, when the whole world, those who were killing each other much more (than us) managed to find common ground, while we still need to deal with our problems," thw the minister told reporters at a conference dedicated to "Security Challenges of the Western Balkans and Serbia" organized by the Center for Foreign Policy NGO.

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