ZAGREB, August 7, 2018 - Croatia's Foreign Ministry on Wednesday responded to recent statements from Serbia, saying comparison with the Nazi regime was a "twisted argument" because it was former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević's regime, with the help of the Yugoslav army and some Croatian and Bosnian Serbs, that was responsible for the return of ethnic cleansing in Europe after WWII.

Serbian statements about Croatia on the occasion of the 23rd anniversary of Operation Storm were "ill-intentioned and wholly unfounded," the ministry said in a press release, dismissing Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić's statement that "Hitler wanted a world without Jews, Croatia wanted a Croatia without Serbs."

The ministry said the Milošević regime had been "responsible for the return of ethnic cleansing in Europe after World War II by attempting to create a so-called ethnically clean Serbia in one third of Croatia, all of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Montenegro and Kosovo." The ministry recalled that Serbia had tried to achieve its expansionist goals by any means, including ethnic cleansing and genocide, saying that was "clearly established at the relevant international forums and courts."

The argument that Slovenia and Croatia illegally separated from the former Yugoslavia, made this year, shows Serbia has still a long way to go in dealing with the recent past, its role in the break-up of the former federation and its military aggression on its neighbours, the ministry said, adding that, instead, Serbian officials continue with their defamation of Croatia.

With Operation Storm, the Croatian army and police liberated most of Croatia's occupied territory, paving the way for the end of the military aggression against Croatia, for the peaceful reintegration of occupied parts of Croatia's Danube river region and for peace and freedom in Croatia, the ministry said.

It called on Serbia to resolutely deal with the past and take a constructive approach based on fact as the only right path towards building good neighbourly relations and true reconciliation, for which Croatia has been offering cooperation since 1996, the ministry said, adding that "the unwillingness of some to deal with the past only delays true reconciliation."

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković has said Vučić's comparison of Croatia with Nazi Germany was a big exaggeration, and that it is well-known that the war was fought in Croatia, not in Serbia, that Milošević's Great Serbia regime carried out a military aggression against Croatia, and that the 1995 Operation Storm ended the occupation of Croatia.