Vucic: Request for Jasenovac visit first made in September

He told a news conference that his request had nothing to do with the anniversary of Croatian military-police operation Storm at the end of the war in Croatia in the mid-1990s. “That claim that I did this in connection with Storm is not true, a lie because I requested this in September last year when that anniversary had already been marked,” he said.

Vucic said that there were multiple contacts with official Zagreb about the visit as well as several requests for him to postpone it or not go at all. Vucic said that Croatian Charges D’Affaires Maja Bogdan delivered a request from her Prime Minister asking him not to go to Jasenovac just days before the visit. He added that Bogdan was told by his advisor that the president would go on a private visit and would not make any statements. “She informed me and this was all my fault,” he said.

According to Vucic, the Croatian government was contacted about the visit for the first time on September 2, 2021, a month after the anniversary of operation Storm. He said Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic’s cabinet replied on September 4 asking him to postpone the visit “due to the internal political situation”. “We did that and didn’t go public because we feel that is how things are done with partners,” he said.

The request was sent again on March 1, 2022 for his visit to Jasenovac on March 5. “The message we got two days later was that the visit is not welcome at this moment and on March 4 I decided not to go to Jasenovac and none of the Serbian media learned about that… we were fair partners,” he said.

The third time was when Vucic told Croatian Serb politician Milorad Pupovac to inform the government which he did. “I said that we would go to Jasenovac with perhaps a single camera and that the visit would be reported afterwards to avoid provocation,” Vucic said and added that it’s shameful that in the 81 years since the death camp was set up no Serbian president ever visited it. “I said I wanted to go while in office to pay my respects to the Serb victims and of course the Roma and Jewish victims who were killed in the most monstrous manner,” he said.

Vucic read out a list of all Croatian officials who visited Serbia.