"What was sent from Belgrade is frivolous and it creates tensions in Croatia because the agreement was made on a wrong level and in a wrong way," Molanovic said.

When Croatia sat down with Serbia to resolve some issues from the past, some things were not defined precisely enough, Milanovic said.

"The agreement was done by state prosecutors and by doing so they practically assumed the role of foreign ministers. And that was wrong...This can be the topic of either a state agreement or political consultations at the highest level, given the seriousness of the issue, namely war crimes," Milanovic said.

Asked to comment Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor's greeting Croatian generals sentenced for war crimes by the ICTY on the occasion of victory Day on 5 August, Milanovic said if that were him, he would not have greeted the generals. He also reiterated that the generals were paying for other people's sins.

After the 1995 Operation Storm, Croatia disgraced itself, Milanovic said. The state did not want to act, it allowed horrible things to happen to the Serb elderly in Varivode, Grubori and Bukovice. This is over. Not enough people have been held responsible for those crimes and that was a test that we have failed. And for many years there were no indictments. It is not my opinion that president Franjo Tudjman should have ended up in The Hague, it is my opinion that this was Croatia's disgrace, Milanovic said, adding that in his opinion General Ante Gotovina was paying off the collective debt.

Asked to comment on media speculation that "once elected the SDP would shut down the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ)", Milanovic said this was nonsense.

Only the Constitutional Court has the power to discontinue a political party, but first there must be evidence that this party and its programme are against the constitutional order and the HDZ is not that kind of a party, Milanovic said.