Josipovic identified the former president of Serbia as the main culprit for crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia in response to a statement made by Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic at a conference of the Adriatic-Ionian Initiative in Ancona on Wednesday. On that occasion, Jeremic said that Serbia was encouraged by Josipovic having said in the Bosnian state parliament that he deeply regretted that Croatia's policy led by Franjo Tudjman had caused human suffering and divisions in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Reacting to Jeremic's statement, Josipovic said he had made no mention of any person in his speech in Sarajevo and that he warned that "policies made mistakes in Bosnia-Herzegovina".

My statement was not an act of measuring guilt but was "an encouragement to cease trying to outdo each other over the past and begin outdoing each other in the present and the future in contributing to peace, particularly as regards Bosnia-Herzegovina and its being organised as a functioning state of equal peoples," Josipovic said.

He added that his speech in the Bosnian parliament included good wishes for Bosnia-Herzegovina and encouragement to the Croat people in Bosnia-Herzegovina to achieve its equality in the forthcoming constitutional changes.

The Croatian foreign ministry on Wednesday warned that Jeremic had abused Josipovic's statement.

The ministry recalled that the Croatian head of state said in Sarajevo that he deeply regretted that Croatia's policies in the 1990s had contributed to human suffering and divisions.