Eurasia Press & News
Serbian President Boris Tadic has emphatically condemned the theft of the Croatian flag from the country’s embassy in Belgrade.
Tadic said he was in contact with all the necessary institutions “in order to arrest and punish the extremists and hooligans who did this”, according to the president’s press service.
The president said extremists existed on both sides, but that Serbia and Croatia were determined to put an end to such incidents. These intentions were confirmed by senior officials of both countries during the Croatian prime minister’s recent visit to Belgrade, Tadic said.
He added that Serbia would not tolerate incidents that attack the integrity of neighboring countries and that the authorities were doing their job in order to track down, apprehend and punish the culprits.
“It is in no-one’s interest, Serbia’s or Croatia’s, to heighten nationalist tensions, which could lead to a worsening of the security situation for Serbs in Croatia,” said the president, who has addressed Croatian officials on several occasions to condemn chauvinistic statements, threats and attacks on Serbs in Croatia.
The police are taking steps to track down intruders who stole the Croatian flag from the Croatian embassy in Belgrade on Tuesday night, said Interior Minister Ivica Dacic to Beta Agency. Dacic said that cameras at the embassy had caught two people taking the flag down and that “all measures will be taken against them”.
Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac also condemned the incident, saying that taking a flag down from any embassy in the capital was unacceptable behavior. Sutanovac said that the culprits probably thought that they were very brave, but that they should be aware that their actions had brought shame on themselves and the country.
The Croatian embassy protested to the Serbian Foreign Ministry yesterday about the incident. The embassy voiced its dissatisfaction over the affront to Croatia’s highest national symbol and has called for an immediate reaction on the part of the authorities to protect Croatian diplomatic facilities throughout Belgrade, the Croatian Foreign Ministry announced today.
