President Ivo Josipovic said on Friday that today's signing of a protocol on the return of Croatian cultural assets from Serbia marked the end of an important stage in the settlement of one of the outstanding issues between the two countries, the return of cultural treasures taken out of Croatia during the 1991-95 war.
The protocol was signed in Zagreb by Croatian Culture Minister Andrea Zlatar Violic and her Serbian counterpart Predrag Markovic.
Speaking at a reception in his office, Josipovic thanked everyone for investing a lot of effort in the return of the cultural assets, saying about 23,000 items had been returned so far and that another 1,065 were to be returned by the end of 2013.
He said some of the items were owned by the Serb Orthodox Church in Croatia, which "is extremely important for the preservation of the Serb minority's identity in Croatia."
Pointing to the issue of the stolen cultural assets, Josipovic voiced hope the ministries in charge of suppression of crime would do their utmost for those items to be found.
"The signing of the protocol... is an important event between the two countries, as it shows that outstanding issues can be solved, that interest can be realised on both sides, which gives one hope that the remaining outstanding issues can also be solved in the best way," Josipovic said, thanking the Croatian and Serbian culture ministers for their help in solving this issue.
Zlatar Violic said the items that had to be returned would be placed in Serb Orthodox Church facilities in Croatia and facilities to be renovated by the Culture Ministry in cooperation with local communities and restorers.
Zlatar Violic highlighted the return of items taken from the Vukovar museum, a Franciscan monastery and Jasenovac. She voiced hope the issue of free distribution of books would be solved over the next year and said the issue of the Yugoslav film archives, the common heritage of films made up to the 1990s, also had to be dealt with, as those films should be available to all citizens and researchers.
Speaking to the press after the reception, Zlatar Violic said Croatia must find good conservation conditions by the end of 2013. Asked about the cost of renovation of the facilities in which the returned items would be placed, she said HRK 6-8 million had been set aside for this year and the next.
Markovic said the remaining 1,065 items would be returned to Croatia as soon as the restoration and security conditions were provided.
Speaking of the theft of the cultural assets, he underlined the importance of preventing illegal trade, which he said was as lucrative as the illegal drug trade.
