Serbian FM Nikola Selakovic said on Thursday that, for Serbs, August was a month of remembrance of suffering and martyrdom and of the days Serbs had been driven out of their ancestral homes in the territory of the Republic of Croatia in a planned, cold-blooded manner.

“The criminal ‘Operation Storm’ was the culmination of an infernal plan that began with the denial of the collective rights of Serbs in Croatia and ended with an entire people being denied the right to exist. Around a quarter of a million of our compatriots from the former Republic of Serb Krajina – those who were fortunate enough to survive the Golgotha of the fateful August of 1995 – ended up in the embrace of Republika Srpska and Mother Serbia, which will forever cherish the memory of the plight of the Krajina Serbs,” Selakovic said.

The minister noted that Croatia celebrated August 5 as Victory Day, while for Serbia and Republika Srpska it was a day of mourning due to the biggest ethnic cleansing in Europe since WWII.

“And that is how that will remain, because oblivion does not heal wounds, but creates new ones,” Selakovic said, adding that the expelled Serbs were the descendants of those who survived the Ustasha terror of the Independent State of Croatia in WWII.

“Serbia and Croatia are neighbouring countries and, for the sake of the future, they must build better relations, cooperate economically and try not to pass prejudice and inherited animosities towards each other on to new generations. However, it is unlikely that the two views on ‘Operation Storm’ and some other historical events will ever be reconciled, just like a killer and his victim, or joy and grief, can never be reconciled,” Selakovic said.

There will never be a new ‘Operation Storm’ because Serbia and the Serbs will not let that happen, Selakovic said in a statement released by the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.