KARAN: STATE IS GUARANTOR OF SERBIAN PEOPLE'S FREEDOM

BANJA LUKA, AUGUST 4 /SRNA/ - Republika Srpska President Siniša Karan said today in Banja Luka that only a people who have their own state will never experience the exodus and ethnic cleansing that Serbs, unfortunately, suffered at the end of the last century in the Croatian criminal and genocidal Operation Storm.

Karan told reporters that Republika Srpska today pays due respect, tribute, and eternal gratitude to the 1,904 Serb victims of the pogrom in the Storm.

"After more than three decades, we sympathize with all the families and descendants of those who suffered in Croatia's ethnic cleansing of Serbs, which bears all the characteristics of genocide. After everything they endured, they found their two homelands - Srpska and Serbia. This is proof that only a people who have their own state will not experience such an exodus and ethnic cleansing," said Karan, who attended a memorial service at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Banja Luka for those killed in the pogrom against Serbs from Republika Srpska Krajina.

He said that Serbs must nurture a culture of remembrance so that the mass suffering from previous wars is not repeated.

"Republika Srpska is the only possible framework for the existential, political, identity-based and national being of our people. There is one Serbian people and one shared history. Wherever Serbs live, they should know that they have two states, Srpska and Serbia. These are the forces that will always guarantee the protection of our survival and the strengthening of our national and political identity," Karan said.