PM Brnabic: Big diplomatic success at Ukraine-Southeast Europe summit, Serbia's sovereignty confirmed

She added that, thanks to Vucic, the wording about the necessity of imposing sanctions against the Russian Federation was removed from the declaration

Prime Minister of Serbia, Ana Brnabic, said last night that the final declaration from the Ukraine-Southeast Europe summit, held in Tirana, dropped the term "country/countries" which, she said, confirmed the sovereignty of Serbia and achieved a great diplomatic success.

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This happened at the insistence of President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic, she said.

"If that had not been accepted, then our autonomous province of Kosovo and Metohija would have been treated there as a country participating in the summit. President Aleksandar Vucic insisted on that and managed to change that, to remove that part. We thus in an extremely important day, at an extremely important summit, practically removed that from all documents and declarations and confirmed our sovereignty," Brnabic told TV Prva.

She stressed this was "a huge thing in difficult circumstances."

In addition, she said that, thanks to Vucic, the wording on the necessity of imposing sanctions against the Russian Federation was also removed from the declaration, as well as the part about "malign Russian influence."

"We really do not see malign Russian influence in Serbia, nor in the Western Balkans. But if you talk about malign influences of foreign countries, then you can certainly talk about malign influences of various foreign countries," the prime minister pointed out.

According to her, removing those parts and wording from the declaration represents a great diplomatic success of Serbia.

She added that this indicates the "enormous courage" on the part of President Vucic.

"For you to say in front of such a gathering: 'This is something that is unacceptable for us and we will not agree with it' and for that (argument) to be accepted - that is not easy. I would say that this is one of the most difficult things that he has managed to achieve lately," said Brnabic.

(Telegraf.rs)