(ANSA) - UDINE - ''The latest verdicts of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on Ratko Mladic and six Croatian officers have closed the great chapter of the war in the Balkans, which ended more than 25 years ago. The many dead cannot come back, and those who have lost parts of their body or their children are inconsolable, but we can not give this burden to the new generations''. Bosnian artist and director Haris Pasovic, new director of Mittelfest, cultural 'Mitteleuropean' festival scheduled for July 2018 at Cividale del Friuli (Udine). Speaking to ANSA, who asked him to comment on the European Union's enlargement process to the Western Balkans and the disconcerting story of the suicide on television of the former Bosnian Croat-war militia commander Slobodan Praljak, condemned by the International Hague Tribunal, Pasovic replied that 'all the victims are inconsolable, but the terrible burden of history can not be given to the new generations''.

''The new generations that are growing in the Balkans do not know what the war was - added Pasovic - they want to resume normal life and we have to support them for this. I travel a lot through the Balkans - he continued - and I see that this process is already happening in that area. Young people want to catch up with the rest of Europe and - he underlined - they want to be a normal part of it''. (ANSA).