Croatian president warns not to let ICTY court ruling jeopardize relations

ZAGREB, Nov. 30, (Xinhua) -- Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic said Thursday mutual relations among relevant parties should not be worsened after the ruling of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

"As president of the republic, I wish to say clearly and unambiguously that the sentence delivered in The Hague yesterday was not against the Republic of Croatia or the Croat people in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH)," Grabar-Kitarovic told the press after returning to Croatia.

She called upon all the people in BiH, notably the Bosniaks (Muslims) and Croats not to let the ruling deteriorate mutual relations.

Grabar-Kitarovic cut short a visit to Iceland Wednesday after Bosnian Croat general Slobodan Praljak committed suicide in the courtroom following the tribunal's ruling to uphold his 20-year jail sentence, announced in May 2013, for war crimes during the 1990s Balkan wars.

Praljak was a former assistant defense minister of Croatia, and during the Bosnian War was commander of the main staff of the Croatian Defense Council, the official military formation of the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, an unrecognized wartime entity that existed in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1991 and 1994.

Offering sympathies for all the victims of the Balkan wars, regardless of ethnicity or religion, Grabar-Kitarovic said the Croats "need to have the strength to admit that some of our fellow compatriots in Bosnia committed crimes and they have to be held responsible for them."

"I also call upon the Bosniak leaders not to let this ruling be abused, let it be the end of one era and the beginning of a new one," she said.

However, the president also expressed regret that the ICTY failed to fulfill its role of bringing justice to all the victims of the war crimes, saying the court's ruling is "an attempt to establish an artificial balance of guilt."

"Croatia was not an aggressor, but did its utmost for the survival of an integral BiH as a state," she said.

The bloody 1991-1995 war in Bosnia, in which 100,000 people died and 2.2 million were displaced, mainly pitted Bosnian Muslims against Bosnian Serbs, but also saw brutal fighting between Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats after an initial alliance fell apart. Enditem