When two neighbouring Balkan countries start trading statements of the kind written „almost on the brink of war," it's worth stopping to ask - who does this serve? Serbian Interior Minister and Deputy PM Ivica Dachic hit back sharply at a statement from Montenegro's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, calling it „the height of hypocrisy and insults toward Serbia."

Dachic claims such statements are extremely rare in international relations and usually surface only when relations between two states are in deep crisis. In one striking comparison, he said that even Trump's statements against Iran were milder than what Montenegro's foreign ministry wrote. It's hard to tell whether that's diplomatic hyperbole or the real temperature of relations.

On the other side, Podgorica rejected accusations that it is waging a „hybrid war" against Serbia or threatening Serbian interests, calling them „unfounded and inappropriate." The dispute comes after a series of statements and counter-statements - including from the leader of a pro-Serbian party in Montenegro - that only fuel an already heated atmosphere.

Dachic noted that hundreds of thousands of people of Montenegrin origin live in Serbia without trouble, and several Serbian state leaders were of Montenegrin descent - an argument that begs the question: what did Serbia do to deserve relations like these? But as always in the Balkans, quarrels like this are rarely about what they look like. History, borders, Kosovo, 1918 - all of it hangs over every statement. And the ordinary people on both sides? They'll keep visiting each other at the seaside and at weddings, no matter what the ministries write.