Bosnia and Herzegovina Human Rights and Refugees Minister Sevlid Hurtic said in Zagreb on Friday that he "washed and put on perfume" before arriving, alluding to a statement Croatian President Zoran Milanovic made three years ago.

Speaking of a civic BiH, Milanovic said on that occasion that “it's a distant dream, but soap first, and then perfume,” which was taken in Sarajevo as an insult directed at Bosniaks, but he later denied it.

“When I said ‘soap first, then perfume’, I was referring both to Croats, to Croatia, and to BiH. It's simply a natural course of events. Because you can't skip some phases of development,” Milanovic explained.

Hurtic today held talks with Ermina Lekaj Prljaskaj, the Croatian MP representing the Albanian, Bosniak, Montenegrin, North Macedonian and Slovenian national minorities.

“Today we are visiting Croatia. We were at the Foreign Ministry. We also came to parliament and I hope your President Milanovic won't be mad. We bought perfume, soap, we bathed and arrived in Croatia clean,” Hurtic told the press.

He said he came to Zagreb to encourage an initiative for Bosniaks in Croatia to have their own constituency.

“We will request that the Croatian government launches (that) initiative, that's what we discussed today,” Hurtic said, adding that this will require change of the constitution. “That's very important to us as Bosniaks, who are a national minority in Croatia and I hope it will happen, just as others are requesting that the election law in BiH be changed.”