“The way I see it, Croats are also people of Christian Orthodox religion and people of Serbian nationality. They are still Croatian in the sense that they are Croatian citizens”, the Chairman of the Committee on the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia Prof. Dr Janko Veselinovic made the following press statement:
“I am deeply surprised by the statement of the newly-elected President of the Republic of Croatia Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic that Serbs in Croatia are Croats. If this is not a serious misunderstanding of the difference between ethnic and religious background on one hand and citizenship on the other, then the statement is even more dangerous. By saying this, Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic breathes new life into Ante Starcevic’s 19th century Party of Rights idea which could prove especially dangerous for the position of the people in Bosnia and Herzegovina because it would impinge on the national identities of Croats and Serbs.
The President of the Republic of Croatia needs not to be reminded of the preamble to the Croatian Constitution which clearly states that Croatia is the nation state of the Croatian nation and the state of the members of its national minorities, including the Serbian minority.
Even in the 1990s, the war years, no Croatian high official ever said that Serbs in Croatia are actually Croats. It would be very unfortunate if a negation of nation and religion were to spread on the territory of former Yugoslavia.
On the behalf of the Committee on the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region and myself, I will champion the rights of Serbs in Croatia and their identity, religious feeling and the right to use their language and Cyrillic script, as well as other minority and status rights, just as we defend the rights to ethnicity and religious affiliation of the national minorities in Serbia, including the citizens of Croatian nationality living in Serbia.
I urge for good relations between Serbia and Croatia, first and foremost in the interest of the two states, as well as of Serbs in Croatia and Croats in Serbia, so I hope this statement of the newly-elected President of the Republic of Croatia will not affect the normalisation of relations between the two states and nations.”