Brussels - Croatia's president said on Thursday that he would only attend the inauguration of Tomislav Nikolic as president of neighbouring Serbia if he clearly renounced his past ultranationalist rhetoric.
Nikolic won Serbia's May 20 presidential election, beating pro-European incumbent Boris Tadic, and is scheduled to take office on June 11.
Alhough Nikolic has said he wants good relations with Serbia's neighbours, who fought bitter wars of independence from Serb-dominated Yugoslavia in the 1990s, he is distrusted by many in the region for his nationalist views.
Relations between the two countries are particularly important now, as Croatia is due to join the European Union in July 2013, while Serbia gained full candidate status in March. One of the conditions for EU membership is that a country has settled any disputes - including over borders - with its neighbours.
Croatian President Ivo Josipovic said he wanted a clear indication that Nikolic had abandoned his ultranationalist past before he would consider going to the inauguration.
“I haven't yet been invited, but definitely a precondition will be a visible change of his political views,” he told Reuters in an interview in Brussels, where he was attending a conference.
Tadic's office said that when Tadic was last inaugurated as president, all regional leaders had been invited.
Asked what he wanted to hear from Nikolic, Josipovic said: “I cannot comment. He knows.”
The election of Nikolic, who served in government under late Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic, has the potential to slow progress in Balkan regional relations. These have improved over the past decade, in particular under the liberal Tadic.
Josopovic referred to comments Nikolic made before the election about Vukovar, a town in Croatia near the border with Serbia. It has a large Serb population and was reduced to rubble during a three-month siege by Serb militia and the Yugoslav army at the outset of Croatia's war of independence in 1991.
Nikolic told the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in an interview that “Vukovar was a Serbian town. Croats should not go back there.” Nikolic later denied having said this, but the interviewer posted an audio file on the web where Nikolic can be heard saying these words in Serbian.
The party Nikolic leads, the Serbian Progressive Party, has tried to position itself as a pro-European conservative party. But Josipovic said it had troubling nationalist positions.
“His party was promoting a policy neglecting the sovereignty of the Republic of Croatia,” he said. “Definitely people can change...their attitudes and positions. I hope Mr. Nikolic can do it. His last statement about Vukovar was not in that direction, definitely.”
Nikolic has tried to reassure neighbours and the European Union that Serbia will not jettison the progress in relations made in recent years. Immediately after his election, he said he would stick to Serbia's current European path.
On Thursday, in an interview with the Serbian daily Vecernje Novosti, he said: “I want good relations in the region and I'm not interested in the witch hunts someone wants to lead against me because of their own internal issues. I want good relations with President Josipovic, and I'm sure that we will both find the best way to protect the interests of the Serb and Croat peoples in both countries.” - Reuters