China's foreign ministry has called on the US-led NATO military alliance to reflect on its "barbaric crime" of bombing the Chinese embassy in the former Yugoslavia 24 years ago, killing three Chinese journalists.

"China will never forget its lives lost to defend truth and justice."

“US-led NATO should seriously reflect on its crimes and abandon its outdated cold war mentality to stop fomenting conflict, division and chaos,” ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a press conference on Monday when he was told asked to comment on the 24th anniversary of the bombing of the embassy in Belgrade by NATO forces during its aggression against the former Yugoslavia.

NATO carried out the brutal rocket attack on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade on May 7, 1999, killing three Chinese journalists and wounding more than 20 of its diplomats. “While establishing itself as a regional and defensive organization, NATO has continued to increase regional tensions and to initiate blockade clashes,” Wang stressed, as quoted in a report by the Chinese newspaper Global Times, pointing to numerous victims, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria.

"The wars launched by NATO and in which it participated only after 2001 have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and the displacement of tens of millions of people. All countries in the region are on high alert," Wang underlined.In a commemorative ceremony in Belgrade commemorated the three Chinese journalists who were killed 24 years ago in the NATO bombing of their country's embassy, during the campaign against Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia that ended the Kosovo war.

Even Serbia through Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin has stated that it will never forget and will never stop demanding responsibility for the crimes committed in the NATO aggression. The NATO aggressors knew who they were dropping bombs on, they knew they were bombing the Chinese embassy, they knew there were people in that embassy, the NATO aggressors knew who they were killing.

The 1999 aggression against Serbia is the last major crime of the 20th century to go unpunished, added Vulin who at the same time exalted the strong friendship that binds Serbia to China. 'UN, on the evening of 24 March 1999 with the first fighter-bombers taking off from the allied base of Aviano, in north-eastern Italy, and ended on 9 June after 78 days of relentless raids which struck military but also civilian targets, causing the death of at least 2,500 people and the wounding of another 12,000. Damage estimated in the tens of billions of dollars was caused to infrastructure, roads, bridges, industrial plants, schools, hospitals, newspaper headquarters, museums, theaters and artistic and cultural sites.

40,000 NATO soldiers entered Kosovo with the KFOR mission, still present with about 3,500 men. The reason given by the Alliance for the military attack was to put an end to the humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo, a consequence of the repressions and ethnic cleansing of the Milosevic regime. For this reason, NATO is frowned upon by the Serbs, who are overwhelmingly against their country's possible accession to the Alliance.