Croatian President, PM at Ceremony Marking Operation Storm

Zoran Milanovic (BETAPHOTO/HINA/Lana SLIVAR DOMINIC)

The president and prime minister of Croatia, Zoran Milanovic and Andrej Plenkovic, attended a central ceremony in Knin on Aug. 5 to observe the Croatian Day of Victory and Homeland Gratitude, the Day of Croatia’s Defenders and the 31st anniversary of the military and police Operation Storm.

Milanovic thanked the defenders, their families and all who took part in the defense of Croatia. Milanovic emphasized that “national interests” lead Croatia to mind its own business and not dwell too much on what others are doing, but that it had to pay attention to Serbia’s arming itself.

“For example – Serbia. A neighboring country that was the sponsor of the rebellion in Croatia. Knin was not the heart of the rebellion, it came from Belgrade,” he added, saying that in the recent days and years he had been hearing the same nonsense over and over again, “some might say: a revision of history.” “When Serbia is arming itself, with formal and direct assistance from some of our formal and informal advisors and allies, we must ask ourselves if that is fair game. How much will that cost us?” Milanovic said.

Plenkovic stated that Croatia is strongly investing into the military for the purpose of peace, security and trust of investors and that this was not a threat to anyone. “Under the leadership of first president Franjo Tudjman, we liberated most of the occupied territory in just a few days and enabled the return of the expelled to their homes, saved Bihac from the looming humanitarian disaster; Storm has changed the balance of power in Bosnia, too, opened the path to peace and the Dayton agreement,” he said.