The Serbian government's public relations coordinator, Slobodan Homen, has said that Serbia welcomes the announcement that Croatia could withdraw the genocide lawsuit it filed against Serbia at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, noting that it represents a major step forward in relations between the two countries and that Serbia will respond to it only after Croatia makes a formal move in that regard.
"The Serbian government welcomes the announcement of the possibility of lawsuit withdrawal, but concrete action can be taken only after Croatia submits an official request to the ICJ to withdraw its lawsuit," Homen told the Serbian news agency Tanjug on Tuesday.
Quoting Croatian newspapers, the Belgrade media have reported lately that Croatia intends to withdraw its genocide lawsuit against Serbia and that such a possibility was announced by Croatian Foreign and European Affairs Minister Vesna Pusic.
However, Pusic said on Tuesday that she was against the withdrawal of the genocide lawsuit, if the issues of people gone missing in the war, plundered property and war crimes were not settled.
"I am not in favour of dropping the lawsuit unless the three fundamental issues are solved: missing people, plundered property and war crimes," Pusic told a news conference in Zagreb.
She said that the efforts to solve those outstanding issues would be met with considerable opposition from both sides.
Maintaining a low-intensity conflict is of no use to citizens but rather benefits political elections, Pusic said after presenting the beginning of a campaign for the 22 January referendum on Croatia's admission to the European Union.
Homen said that Serbian authorities had reiterated on a number of occasions that conflicts should be resolved peacefully, at the negotiating table, and that they were fully aware that there was a number of outstanding issues dating back to the 1990s, including those on the settlement of which Pusic insisted.
"Those are primarily the issue of the property of Croatian Serb citizens, the issue of tenancy rights... Those outstanding issues should be solved urgently, especially when one knows that the war ended 15 years ago and that those citizens still have no right to what is guaranteed by the laws of the civilised world and the European Union, namely the right to private property," Homen said.
In July 1999 Croatia sued Serbia at the ICJ for genocide in the 1991-1995 war, and the ICJ declared its jurisdiction over the matter in November 2008. The Serbian government responded by filing a genocide countersuit against Croatia at the same court in January 2010.
