“I want to believe that it will come a time when it will be normal for a president or prime minister of Serbia to be in Srebrenica, not to invent some other name for genocide that took place there, not to come there because someone is asking for it, but because innocent people were killed there and normal people in a normal time understand that, without a need for any other explanations, to realize that every pain is the same and we do not have a lot of people in the world that are closer than we are to each other. I want to believe that the time will come when Serbia will end with the criminal policy which includes the denial of genocide, and that it will end with the criminals who conducted this horrible crime. I’ll be there in Srebrenica, because I believe that such relationships can be built, because I feel a deep human need to be there on the 11th of July and because today we cannot lean on those who want to take us back to the hatred and madness, “said Jovanovic.
Jovanovic also said that without complete honesty in the mutual relations in the region, which includes normalization of the situation in Kosovo and the recognition of the genocide in Srebrenica as well as much more, joint regional projects will be only isolated incidents.
“Every question that is trying to enlighten the situation in our region clashes with the same answer, in order to have a different region, relations based on understanding and cooperation, the market and unique cultural space, we need to moved out of the quicksand that was eating us alive for the past two decades and we must decide first what we want to be and how we want to achieve it. As long as our intention to move towards Europe and towards the normalization of the situation in the region does not have place in a clear political decisions, from the normalization of the situation in Kosovo to the recognition of the genocide in Srebrenica, from approaching the EU’s foreign policy to respect the legally prescribed freedoms, if we do not show the ability to understand each other as we would like others to understand us, any conversation of joint projects will be only an isolated case, the story for media or foreign statesmen who visit indigenous tribes. If we want a different and more functional world around us, we have to be different than we are,” said Jovanovic.
Whether the new government in Serbia is ready to transform into a different kind of society or not, will be shown in the next few months. Serbia received considerable amount of support in the negotiation process with the European Union, but without constructive role towards BiH, without favoring smaller BiH entity, that transformation will not be complete.
“If the next government seriously approaches to implementation of the Brussels agreement, if it takes a constructive role in BiH, if it seriously starts to approach the European security and foreign policy, the time will come when the negotiation process will be unblocked. Otherwise, without a honest desire to change relations in the region and for Serbia to be organized as a country of free media and judiciary system, with transformed state apparatus, regulated situation of all minorities, chapters of negotiations with the European Union will be an empty shell of the Brussels bureaucracy and will not take us anywhere,” concluded Jovanovic.
(Source: S. Hambo/Klix.ba)