Vucic: It is important that we have good relations with Croatia, but not in way they imagine them

BUGOJNO - For Serbia, it is important to have peace and good relations with Croatia, but not in the way the Croats imagine them, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday.

"I think it is important that we have peace and good relations with Croatia, but not in the way they imagine those relations - they want us to sing and dance to their tune, and they want us to listen and serve their interests. We have our own interests," Vucic told Informer TV in Cipuljic, central Bosnia and Herzegovina - the birthplace of his ancestors on his father's side - when asked how difficult it was for him personally to put aside, in the context of the relations with Croatia, the fact that his grandfather had been killed by the Croatian Ustasha regime in WWII.

"The Serbs are not a small nation or a nation of servants, but a nation of proud people," Vucic said.

"That is the difference," he added.

Later in the day, in Mrkonjic Grad, Republika Srpska, Vucic will address a ceremony that will mark August 4, a remembrance day for Serbs killed and expelled in Croatia's 1995 armed "Operation Storm".

Thirty-one years ago today, Croatian military and police troops expelled 220,000 Serbs from the then Republic of Serb Krajina, killing around 2,000.

Vucic: Serbia best in region, will fight to keep up with leaders in AI

MRKONJIC GRAD - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday development of artificial intelligence (AI) could lend an additional impetus to the national economy and that Serbia would fight to keep up with the most developed nations in the field, but noted that it was already the best in the region.

"We will fight not to lag far behind the world's most developed countries and to keep up with them as much as we can, but we are too small and we do not have sufficient human resources to be able to compare with Europe's most powerful countries," Vucic told Informer TV in Mrkonjic Grad, Republika Srpska, when asked to comment on a statement by Telekom Srbija CEO Vladimir Lucic that Serbia could become an AI development hub for entire Europe thanks to excellent political relations it was developing on various sides.

Vucic added that Serbia had great potential in the field and that such developments would definitely be important, but that one needed to look at realistic possibilities.

He noted that, however, Serbia had a significant advantage over countries in the region.

"Are we the best in the region? There is no doubt about that at all," Vucic said.