Culture minister Zlatko Hasanbegovic has never expressed any regret for his controversial statements in the 1990s praising Croatian Nazi-allied Ustasa fighters as heroes, Natasa Matausic told BIRN in an interview.

Matausic, who was the acting head of the Croatian History Museum for several months last year, said that it was time for Hasanbegovic to apologise.

“I would like him more, if it’s even possible for me to like him, if he openly admitted everything he was, everything he did and everything he wrote. And apologised for that,” she said.

“Who is he deceiving? Himself? People thinking the same as him? Us?” she asked rhetorically.

Matausic also criticised more recent statements by Hasanbegovic in which he has described a reference to anti-fascism in the Croatian constitution as “an empty phrase” and insisted that Croatia was “tragically defeated in 1945” when the Nazi-allied Independent State of Croatia, NDH was ousted by the Partisans led by Josip Broz Tito. ...