Lawsuits will not be dropped

BELGRADE - The deputy prime ministers of Serbia and Croatia, Aleksandar Vucic and Vesna Pusic respectively, have said that the two countries will not drop mutual lawsuits for genocide before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), but they agree that this is the issue of the past which must not encumber the present relations.

"A month of public hearing will not be pleasant, but what we advocate for and we have said today is that whatever is delivered in the court proceedings will be a part of resolving the past, and not part of today's politics," Pusic said at a joint press conference at the Serbian government on Monday.

"The worst thing would be for that to have repercussions on today's politics," she said.

Vucic and Pusic agreed that the court proceedings will not conclude the issue regarding the events of the 1990s. The relations of the past are not on the agenda any more, and the issues are not part of daily politics, but rather fall in the category of history, they added.

"I do not think it is easy to put an end to that. An overwhelming majority of citizens and the leadership in Croatia deem that Serbia carried out an aggression in the 1990s, while in Serbia people think that Croatia conducted a severe ethnic cleansing in Krajina, and no court proceedings can change that," Vucic said.

It is good that both countries see the future in the same way - as peaceful and stable, the future in which issues are addressed openly, he said.

We can resolve a part of the problems, but we cannot solve everything and we do not want to conceal that. That is the only way to work toward normal relations, he said.

Vucic underscored that efforts are being invested in ensuring that the court proceedings...

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