President: Serbia wants peace with neighbors

Serbia wants peace and friendship with all the countries in the world and especially with next door neighbors, said Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic on Wednesday welcoming his Croatian counterpart Ivo Josipovic, local media reported. "Both countries should close the iron gates of the difficult past we share and seek common interest in the future," said Nikolic, adding that relations between Serbia and Croatia from now on should have the character of continuous, open and constructive dialogue. "I am convinced that we are on the good way to make a decisive breakthrough in bettering relations between Croatia and Serbia," said Nikolic, stressing that it is of immense importance that Croatia (EU member since July 2013) supports Serbia's EU integration, and promotes further regional cooperation in the Balkans. Josipovic said that visible progress is made in numerous fields, which in his words, proves that Serbia and Croatia can do better. However, he also turned attention to problems that burden relations between the two countries, most of all the issue of the missing persons. "It is the ultimate problem, both moral and legal one," said Josipovic, assessing that its solution is a precondition for full recovery of the bilateral ties between the two Balkan countries torn during the war in former Yugoslavia in 1991/1995. Josipovic said that Croatia claims some 1,689 persons. According to him, 953 went missing in 1991 and 1992, who are mostly ethnic Croats, and 736 in 1995 are mostly ethnic Serbs. In the action of Croatian armed forces in summer of 1995, over 250,000 of ethnic Serbs from Croatia were forced to leave their homes, and majority of them has remained in Serbia, which is still the country with the largest number of refugees in Europe, Serbian Commissariat for Refugees reports. The Croatian president has met with Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic and will later during the day meet with speaker of the Serbian Parliament Nebojsa Stefanovic.