Vucic grateful to Cuban president for supporting Serbia's territorial integrity

A face-to-face meeting between Vucic and Diaz-Canel followed

President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic today hosted President of Cuba Miguel Diaz-Canel in Belgrade. The ceremony started a little after 10 am in front of the Palace of Serbia, after which Vucic and Diaz-Canel addressed the media.

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Cuban president's address

Diaz-Canel recalled that Serbia and Cuba have 120 years of interstate relations.

He said that we have perfect relations between parliaments and ministries and added that we can develop cooperation in the field of culture and sports.

The Cuban president said that cooperation should be strengthened in the fields of agriculture, culture and tourism.

"We really want the ties between our two governments to be stronger and we want to continue cooperation," he said.

President Vucic's address

Vucic first thanked his Cuban counterpart for visiting Serbia and for supporting our country's territorial integrity.

"I saw how the Cuban people fight for freedom and progress and we continue to work on improving our relations, I am especially grateful to the president for his support for the territorial integrity of Serbia. We have had a lot of support from Latin American countries. Our Cuban friends were always helpful and whenever we needed support for our territorial integrity we got it. There is no country in Europe where the Cuban people enjoy greater respect. I never dreamed that our people would show such an interest in cooperation, especially in healthcare. Serbia is a country that is agriculturally self-sufficient.

Although the distance between us is more than 9,000 kilometers, we are ready to find a way to help export food. My proposal was to reaffirm a mixed committee that has not been functioning for years and to include people from different ministries who would find different ways of cooperation, starting with sports. They have success in producing medicines, special vaccines and sprays. We'll talk about that soon, but we managed to have enough missile propellant for our defense industry thanks to the old explosives we imported from Cuba.

There are many areas from politics to social life. The qualities of both countries is that we are both independent, freedom-loving, and that's why there is this kind of closeness between Cubans and Serbs. I was especially proud when I was in Cuba six years ago, when I met the current president. We just laid the foundations then, and now we are building a house of friendship," said the Serbian president.

He added that he hopes for future cooperation, as well as a new visit to Serbia.

"Today we also talked about biotechnology, cooperation in scientific and innovative projects, where we can offer each other a lot. We have broken records in exports of software services and I would like the president of Cuba to come more often, to visit science and technology parks. We also talked about tourism cooperation and we will look to develop it because there is an interest from our citizens to visit this country. People are traveling more and more and I believe that it will be one of the attractive destinations for the future," he said.

He thanked Diaz-Canel and invited him to visit Serbia again.

"President, thank you for this visit and I hope you feel at home here. I expect you to come again and spend more time in our country. Trade exchange must be much greater, and I believe that this interest we have shown today can improve our relations," he added.

Vucic earlier posted on Instagram, after the ceremony to welcome the Cuban leader.

"I am convinced that this visit will give new momentum to strengthening the traditionally friendly relations between our two countries, as well as to the deepening of political ties and economic cooperation. Welcome, dear friend!," Vucic wrote on Instagram.

The Cuban president was welcomed with all honors - a red carpet, the Serbian Army Guards and the sounding of national anthems, after which he bowed to the Serbian flag as a sign of respect.

A face-to-face meeting between Vucic and Diaz-Canel followed.

Plenary talks were also held between the delegations of Serbia and Cuba led by the presidents of the two countries.

The Serbian delegation included Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dacic, Minister of Internal and Foreign Trade Tomislav Momirovic and Minister of Agriculture Jelena Tanaskovic.

The president of Cuba arrived on a two-day visit to Serbia yesterday, and this is his first official visit to our country.

(Telegraf.rs)