Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic hinted on Monday that there had been no serious security threats that would have justified President Zoran Milanovic's decision to cancel his visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Milanovic on Sunday cancelled his visit to Travnik and Nova Bila for unspecified security reasons. His decision was preceded by severe criticisms from Bosniak politicians over his statement concerning the qualification of the 1995 massacre of Bosniaks at Srebrenica as an act of genocide.

“I don't know why he did not go to Nova Bila. If there had been anything of relevance to security, anything dramatic, a warning sign, I am certain that I would have been informed about it. And I didn't get any information in that regard,” Plenkovic told a press conference.

Asked if this meant that Milanovic lied, the prime minister said. “I don't know. You have to ask him that. I am not his spokesman.”

He accused Milanovic of running a detrimental foreign policy antagonising other countries, including Bosnia and Herzegovina and causing damage to the Croats living there.

Plenkovic called Milanovic “a big ostensible protector” of the Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the president earlier criticised him for not blocking the adoption of recent conclusions by the Council of the EU on enlargement, in which there was no reference to the status of the Croats as a constituent people.

Plenkovic defended the conclusions, saying that they included everything important for the status of the smallest constituent ethnic group in Bosnia and Herzegovina and that Milanovic's statement can only do damage to them and to Croatia.

“Things are very simple: what I am doing is good, and what he is doing is bad. I will continue doing the right thing as I have for the past five years. How long will he continue doing his thing, I don't know,” Plenkovic said.