Croatia's Ambassador to the United Nations, Ranko Vilovic, has dismissed as unfounded and unacceptable the assessment by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Serge Brammertz, that high-level Croatian officials continue to glorify illegal war-time conduct and question the impartiality of the court's judgements.
As regards the oral assessment by Prosecutor Brammertz... Croatia dismisses such assessments in their entirety as unfounded and unacceptable, Vilovic is shown as saying in a recording of the December 7 session of the UN Security Council at which Brammertz presented his regular report, which was posted on the UN web site on Thursday.
Vilovic added that it must be possible to state freely an expert opinion on the matter and that such opinions must not be seen as the questioning of the impartiality of the court's judgements.
He said that Croatia is deeply committed to reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia and strongly believes that the prosecution of all people responsible for violations of international humanitarian law is a necessary precondition for achieving that objective.
The ambassador said that such prosecution cannot be to the detriment of historical facts. Distorting facts only leads to further divisions, tensions and new injustices, Vilovic said.
