"During my meeting with Serbian President Boris Tadic in Opatija, we didn't even mention the proceedings before the ICJ, but only responded to a question from the press. I think that Tadic and I rightly envisaged what can happen. We underlined that that comes at the end of the road, when we resolve our problems. Then will the genocide lawsuit be unnecessary. But unfortunately, the media interpreted it as though it would happen tomorrow and as though we firmly promised that," Josipovic said at a joint news conference with Tadic.

Josipovic said his positions on this matter and those of the Croatian government were the same.

Asked what Serbia was doing about the painful issue of the more than one thousand persons from Croatia gone missing during the war, which was one of the reasons for the lawsuit, Tadic said, "There are missing Serbs in Croatia, some Croats who disappeared in Serbia".

"That's one of the most painful problems and we must help the families so that the problem can be resolved," he said.

The two presidents took part in a debate on the western Balkans within the Brussels Forum, one of the biggest meetings of the most influential politicians, analysts and business people from North America and Europe. European Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele and US Senator George Voinovich took part in the discussion.