Dacic: How small should Serbia be, not to be great? (Prva TV, B92)
Serbian Foreign Affairs Minister Ivica Dacic has pointed out that the incident with the burning of Milorad Pupovac's effigy in Croatia is not an isolated case.
"The problem is that an anti-Serb atmosphere is being created and incidents do not happen only in election campaigns (…)," Dacic told Prva TV.
"This is reflected in other areas - relativizing history, rehabilitating the Ustasha regime, which is happening nowhere in the modern world, when it comes to fascist greetings," Dacic noted, adding the message is still that Serbs have no place in Croatia.
He also emphasized that no protest note was sent to Austria because of a graphic reading "KLA" ("Kosovo Liberation Army") sprayed on the building of Serbia's Consular Section in Vienna.
"We didn't do this because Austria does not bear responsibility as a state, except for the fact that the consulate was not secured, and now they know that more attention needs to be paid to our consular offices (…)," Dacic said.
Dacic also commented on a celebration in Tuzi, Montenegro, as well as statements from Pristina mentioning "a pan-Albanian victory" in this municipality.
"There is a nationalist and fascist rhetoric in Croatia, a call to persecute and expel Serbs, while with Pristina we have problems such as taxes and an obstruction of a deal with Belgrade. You do not hear about it anywhere in the international community. They always remember Greater Serbia, they always use the opportunity to say that this is a danger," Dacic underlined, and quoted Cedomir Popov as asking, "How small must Serbia be in order not to be great?"
Dacic also spoke about meetings high representatives of Serbia will have in the coming days.
"Tomorrow the Italian prime minister arrives (in Belgrade), the German defense minister is coming, as well as Angela Merkel's advisers; (Bulgarian PM) Boyko Borisov and US special envoy Hale. This tells us that pressure on Pristina is still not working. Pacolli said, 'Goodbye, we have nothing to talk about' - they did not expect such behavior. For years we have been saying that leadership is taking the world before a fait accompli," he said, adding that the position of Serbia at this moment is "good."
"The position of Serbia is good, because we are not labeled as a side impeding dialogue, making unilateral moves and causing incidents. We have achieved that 13 countries withdrew recognition of Kosovo, and that Kosovo cannot join some institutions," Dacic pointed out.