Serbia sends protest to Croatia, expects government to react

The Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs late on Monday sent the strongest protest to Croatia over the decision of the town of Vukovar to change its statute.
Source: Tanjug Tuesday, August 18, 2015 | 09:31

(Tanjug, file)

This change means there will be no bilingual signs - i.e., those printed in both Croatian and Serbian Cyrillic, the alphabet of the Serb minority in the town - posted on public buildings, streets and squares.
In addition, the use of the Cyrillic script will, under the City Council’s decision, be possible only with prior request and payment of a fee, the Serbian government said on its website.

The Serbian MFA said that the changes in question "directly deny the equality of use of language and script, thus violating basic human and minority rights of the Serbs."

Serbia warned Croatia that it is obliged to respect its international commitments and demands urgent reaction by government authorities of the country to the decision of local authorities in Vukovar.

The ministry "reminds that Vukovar’s high representatives did this in a year when the whole world celebrates 70 years of victory over fascism and became known these days to the general public by singing Ustasha songs from the time of the fascist Independent State of Croatia (NDH)."

The protest note will be presented to the charge d'affaires of the Croatian embassy in Belgrade, Ivan Sabolic, the MFA said in a statement carried on the government website.