Reacting to a statement made by Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic who said that Bosnia is a "second homeland" for Croats, former Croatian President Stjepan Mesic said Bosnia was the Bosnian Croats first homeland and that their capital is Sarajevo.

“We have the constitutional obligation to protect Croats abroad. In this case, those are national rights, as Croats in Bosnia are not a minority, this is their second homeland,” Grabar-Kitarovic told reporters in Mostar on Monday.

But Mesic told the news agency Patria that he understood the issue differently.

“I always believed that Bosnia and Herzegovina is the homeland of Bosnian Croats, that they have to coordinate with the other two nations when laws are being created and that Croatia has to provide help to all Croats abroad, including those in Bosnia,” Mesic said.

He said he expects such an attitude also from Serbia regarding its relation toward Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“They keep saying in Serbia: ‘we favor a united Bosnia and Herzegovina but we support everything Milorad Dodik does,’ and Milorad Dodik does not recognize Bosnia and Herzegovina,” he said, referring to the Bosnian Serb political leader who keeps denying Bosnia and advocating Bosnian Serb secession.

“So, what is Belgrade’s position?” Mesic asked.

Mesic explained that whoever knows anything about southeast Europe and Europe, surely knows that Europe’s architecture is completed and that there will be no more changes of its borders.

Countries in southeast Europe should bring their policies in line with that, he said.

“The last border to be defined will be the Kosovo border,” he said, adding that the sooner everybody understands that, the better for the region.