Serbian President Boris Tadic said at a Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly session in Strasbourg on Wednesday that relations in Southeast Europe were the best in the last 20 years and that Croatia-Serbia relations were improving despite different positions on the 1991-95 war.
"I want to draw your attention to Serbia's bilateral relations with Croatia. These are improving, despite profoundly different assessments of the 1991-95 conflict," Tadic said in a speech published on the Council of Europe website.
"We are heartened by the conciliatory rhetoric and gestures of President (Ivo) Josipovic and Prime Minister (Jadranka) Kosor of Croatia, with whom I enjoy a close working relationship," Tadic said, adding the reconciliation process was helped by his recent meeting with Josipovic in Vukovar and Josipovic's expression of regret in the Bosnian parliament "that the pursuit of policies by Croatia under (former President Franjo) Tudjman led to human suffering and divisions there."
Tadic's speech coincided with a Parliamentary Assembly debate on three reports related to the former Yugoslavia - on witness protection, on reconciliation and political dialogue, and on the obligation of Council of Europe countries to cooperate in the prosecution of war criminals.
"The evidence of progress in the Balkans is conclusive: regional relations have reached a new level of trust and understanding. In fact, they have not been better in the past 20 years," said Tadic.
He said the improvement in relations between Serbia and Croatia was encouraging for Bosnia and Herzegovina, and that Serbia was committed to Bosnia's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
"Our collective task is to assist in the establishment of a structure of governance that respects the rights and interests of the two entities and the three constitutive nations and enhances the effectiveness of governance."
Tadic also said that Serbia's strategic goal was to join the EU. "I am personally convinced that my country is on the right path."
He said Serbia would continue to fully cooperate with the Hague war crimes tribunal. "(We) will keep working on locating, arresting and extraditing the remaining two fugitive indictees, including Ratko Mladic, as we have with 44 others over the past few years."
Tadic welcomed the fact that the Council of Europe adopted a report by rapporteur Dick Marty on illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo, and called for investigating the charges contained in the document.
The Parliamentary Assembly adopted yesterday the report in which Marty accused a group close to incumbent Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci of having organised an illegal trade in organs during Kosovo's conflict with Serbia (1998-99) and after it.
