Croatian President Zoran Milanović pointed out on Wednesday, at the commemoration of the 31st anniversary of Operation Storm, that the Dayton Agreement was signed after the intervention of the Croatian Army, which was agreed upon with the American allies, and mentioned that the truth is important.
“During those years of war, the Croatian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina fought a joint war with the Croatian people in Croatia. Unprovoked, imposed, difficult, without prospects in those years, without help, even without serious verbal help, let alone material help,” Milanović said, adding that “national interests dictate that we look at ourselves, and to be loyal and responsible to others, if possible, and not to concern ourselves too much with others.”
In this context, he referred to Serbia and the statements of their representatives, emphasizing that “we listen to this nonsense and revision of history all the time.”
“History is a type of interpretation that can be fair or unfair. I somehow believe that our interpretation of history is fair, but again, I am subjective – I am the president of Croatia, I am a Croat. I see history the same way, but I also think that we should not react to every verbal nonsense that comes across the Danube, it will come all the time,” Milanović assessed.
However, he added, we should deal with what is natural in the material sphere, namely armaments, because this affects security.
“When Serbia arms itself with the help and direct assistance of some of our formal or informal allies, we have to ask ourselves whether it is fair play, how much it costs us, how much it will still cost us,” he assessed.
Speaking of defense, he emphasized that Croatia is special because it is the only country in the EU and NATO whose army is led by people who were in real combat 30 years ago. No Chief of the General Staff of any NATO country has led a battalion into an attack, while our Chief Tihomir Kundid has, Milanović pointed out, adding that this is why he has his trust.
“He is the last of his kind. When he retires, according to the law and the Constitution, the next Chief of the General Staff, more by legality and force of age and biology, will not be such a man. It will be someone new,” the President of the Republic of Croatia noted.
And the army, he added, if it wants to be tough, resilient, if it wants to continue to be victorious, it must turn its head from old wars and more or less forget what it looked like and turn to improvisation and the challenges of the new time.
“These are not just the systems that we all talk about, these are some other models, asymmetrical, David-versus-Goliath ways of fighting, and we will not go further here only with spending, which needs to be cured because without spending and investment there is nothing, but also with reflection, skepticism,” Milanović said.
