Zoran Milanovic. Photo: Damir Sencar Beta

Bosnian and Serbian politicians reacted angrily after Zagreb-based newspaper Jutarnji List on Wednesday leaked audio of SDP leader and former prime minister Milanovic effectively describing Bosnia as a failed state and accusing the Serbian government of being “arrogant”.

“Bosnia is not a [real] country… you don’t have anybody to talk with there,” Milanovic said on the tape, recorded during a conversation with two representatives of Croatian war veterans, Josip Klemm and Drazimir Jukic.

“You don’t have order [in Bosnia],” Milanovic added.

During the leaked conversation, Milanovic also said that if Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity Republika Srpska secedes from the country, Bosnian Croats will be left in a country mostly inhabited by Bosniaks, implying that Zagreb should act if this happens.

Milanovic alleged that Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik has been cooperating with Austrian right-wing parties, securing them votes from Serbs in the diaspora in exchange for their support to secede from Bosnia.

“What will we do then? Do we want to leave Croats from Bosnia in a country with Bosniaks, I don’t think so… we are dealing with villains, remember that,” Milanovic said.

During the leaked recording, he also criticised the Serbian government.

“Chetniks have arrived [in government in Belgrade], ” he alleged, insisting that Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic should have been indicted for his wartime actions, when he was a member of the nationalist Serbian Radical Party.

He also accused the Serbian government of being “arrogant” and wanting “to rule half the Balkans”.

He also added that if necessary, he would be ready “not only to block the EU’s negotiations with Serbia, but also to pass a law to prosecute Serbian citizens who committed war crimes in Kosovo”.

Politicians in Bosnia and Serbia criticised Milanovic’s comments.

“Zoran Milanovic has really gone too far this time,” Bosnian Foreign Minister Igor Crnadak told news agency FENA, accusing the Croatian politician of offending Bosnia, Serbia and Serbs in general.

Crnadak said that “as somebody who wishes to become the next prime minister of Croatia, and who has already been in that position, he should have more respect and tact when dealing with his neighbours from the region”.

Bosnian Prime Minister Denis Zvizdic sent a letter to Milanovic on Thursday condemning his comments.

“With these extremely inappropriate statements, you have totally deviated from the values which … you should promote,” Zvizdic’s letter said.

Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic told local media meanwhile that Milanovic’s statements reminded him of Ante Pavelic, the Ustasa leader who ruled the pro-Nazi Independent State of Croatia during WWII.

“I know that during electoral campaigns in Croatia we can expect attacks against Serbs as a people, because in Croatia this is a way to score electoral points,” Nikolic said.

Croatia’s general elections are to be held on September 11.

After his comments were made public, Milanovic reacted by saying that he had suspected that somebody was recording the meeting, which was supposed to take place behind closed doors.

“We figured out [that somebody was recording the conversation], but we didn’t say anything about that and we laughed about it … [what happened] says a lot about the behaviour of [those who leaked the conversation to the media],” Milanovic told Croatian media.

But SDP member Franko Vidovic, who organised the meeting, accused the two veterans’ representatives of recording and leaking it in order to discredit the party before the upcoming elections.

“The next meeting… with you gentlemen as far as I’m concerned will never take place,” Vidovic wrote on Facebook.

Jukic however rejected the allegations.

“We are not that advanced to have recorded this meeting… these are internal conflicts inside the SDP,” Jukic told Zagreb-based website Tportal.