President of the Bosnian Serb entity, Republika Srpska (RS), Milorad Dodik said Saturday in the Serbian town of Backa Palanka he was confident that during this century the Serb people would find the strength and unite Serb territories.

Dodik attended a ceremony marking the Remembrance Day, commemorating the persecution of Serbs during the Croatian military and police Operation Storm, by which Croatia regained its occupied territory and which the authorities in Belgrade describe as “a premeditated crime.”

Different perceptions of the military operation have been a divisive factor in relations between Croatia and Serbia since the mid-1990s. While Zagreb sees Storm as a military triumph, which liberated its territory from aggression, Belgrade views it as ethnic cleansing of Serbs.

“Over and over again I am seeking a strength within myself to understand what had happened to my, to our Serb people. Not only in the Storm but earlier too. The people who had suffered in the past century, the people who had the identity, who suffered while their neighbours were seeking for their incomplete identity,” said Dodik.

The RS president said Croatia freed its generals who led this military operation owing to the international intervention.

“The suffering in the Storm was stormy. Children, women, civilians were killed. There is no justice. We, as Serbs, always believe it is possible. There is no justice where a criminal is in charge of granting it,” underlined Dodik.

“A thank you to Serbia for being a shelter to every Serb, wherever they might be, and that’s what Serbia is today. Serbia is our identity, of us, the Serbs in the Republika Srpska and in the world. Serbia is a guarantee,” he added.

Dodik asked President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic to protect the RS, saying that “we love Serbia, we see Serbia as our country.”