Croatian President Zoran Milanovic said on Saturday at the celebration of Victory Day and the 28th anniversary of Operation Storm in Knin that, without Croatia's victory, the Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina would not have happened.

The President and Commander-in-Chief emphasized that people are still returning to Knin, which is the result of the work of all governments and the atmosphere among the Croatian people.

At the beginning of his speech, Milanovic greeted the high-ranking guests, the soldiers, as well as the “brothers in arms” from Bosnia and Herzegovina's Croatian Council of Defence (HVO), and said that such anniversaries serve to establish the truth.

“Truth is deep water. Not everyone sees it the same way. They didn't see it in Prijedor (Serb-populated town in northwest Bosnia) yesterday, unfortunately. Of all the places, they chose Prijedor, where several thousand Muslims and Croats were killed in 1992, and that is not nice. I will put it in mild terms – that was wrong,” said Milanovic.

He was reffering to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who said on Friday in Prijedor, Bosnia and Herzegovina, that “Storm” was the largest ethnic cleansing in Europe after World War II, while Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik called the operation a joint criminal enterprise for which he blamed Croatia, but also the USA.

“The victory was big and difficult. When we talk about the truth, the truth should be told in its entirety. Croatia's victory made the Dayton Peace Agreement possible, but that is a very defensive claim. It did not only make it possible, but the agreement wouldn't have happened without Storm,” said Milanovic.

“Without the defeat of the enemy at the time, nothing would have come from the French and British bombers that had been striking the enemy in vain for several weeks and they (the Serb forces) would never have been forced to the negotiating table,” he added.

He stated that some others do not see it that way, but that it is his duty to repeat it all the time so that we respect ourselves more and establish that “we have not really done anything wrong, no more and no less than an ordinary person and an ordinary community”.