The Honorary Chinese Guard and Red Carpet for the President of Serbia: Vucic arrived in Beijing (TELEGRAF AT THE SCENE)

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic arrived early this morning on several days visit to Beijing, during which he will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, as well as Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, who will discuss, in addition to bilateral issues, Kosovo and Metohija.

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At the airport in Beijing, the president of Serbia, who heads the delegation of ministers, was greeted with an honorary guard of the Chinese army and a red carpet. 

In the Chinese capital, the second Forum "Belt and Road" is being held, where, according to the host's announcements, will be twice as many state delegations than two years ago, on the first gathering, and the officials of the countries of the EU will be there, which didn't participate in this initiative at first.

The Serbian president received the invitation to participate in this gathering from the president of China, and there are plans to meet with Nang Hunin, the member of the Permanent committee of Politburo of China, the member of the secretariate of the Central Committee of China and the director of the Office for research of Politics of China.

The forum "One belt, one road" will be attended by Russian president Putin, president of Portugal Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, of Chezch Republic Milos Zeman, Switzerland Ueli Maurer, Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, Cyprus Nicos Anastasiades, Chile Sebastián Piñera, Egypt Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Around 40 leaders of states and governments were announced. 

Among them are Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Greece's Alexis Tsipras, Austria's Sebastian Kurz, Italy's Giuseppe Conte, and the heads of the United Arab Emirates, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Singapore and Thailand, and the Secretary-General UN António Guterres and IMF Director Christine Lagarde.

Foto: Tanjug/D. Goll

The forum consists of a series of events, such as roundtable with leaders, high-level meetings, thematic forums, a conference of executive directors to further promote co-operation, Wang pointed out. He said that for the first time, a conference was also planned for the business community in particular.

- The Second Forum aims to contribute to raising the quality of cooperation within the "Belt and Road" initiative and to allow a full exchange of views on the future cooperation plan - explained Wang.

He stressed that China builds consensus-based cooperation through a transparent and inclusive approach.

- We have reason to hope and believe that the second Forum will be a great success - Vang said ahead of the meeting.

Prior to his visit to China, the President of Serbia received the Ambassador of that country, Chen Bo, and expressed his satisfaction with the participation in the second forum "Belt and road", and for meeting Xi Jinping for the sixth time. 

As he announced, Vucic will thank the Chinese president for everything he has done for Serbia and the help in Economic development, and the support in matters of state and national interest.

Foto: Tanjug/D. Goll

Vucic said that he sincerely hopes that President Xi, during his meeting in Beijing, will confirm his intention to honor us by visiting Serbia again. Vucic said that he is happy for contributing to Chinese-Serbian relations reaching the highest point in history, to the level of comprehensive strategic partnership and steel friendship.

Ambassador Chen stressed that President Vucic will be given special honor to be among the three leaders who will give the closing statement. Vucic said that participation in this Forum is a great honor for Serbia and a confirmation that China in our country sees a reliable partner. He also expressed the strong support of Serbia for the visionary idea of President Xi, because it is one of the most significant in modern history, which will contribute to the progress of all humanity.

President Vucic will meet, as announced, on April 26 in Beijing and with the head of the Russian state Putin. According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, this will be a continuation of the intensive dialogue between Serbia and Russia, which was drawn up by the presidents of the two countries. Vucic has repeatedly announced in the past days that important meetings will be held this week on the future of the dialogue with Kosovo.

He recently also asked representatives of the Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija to wait for his return from China and then from Berlin.

He also announced that, after talks in Beijing and then in Berlin on May 6, he will also announce the measures Belgrade will take in response to all the measures introduced by Pristina, sabotaging the dialogue on the solution of Kosovo problem, unless Pristina government don't abolish it until then.

Delegation led by the president of Serbia also includes  Minister of Trade and Telecommunications Rasim Ljajic, Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure Zora Mihajlovic, Minister of Finance Sinisa Mali, Minister of Mines and Energy Aleksandar Antic, Minister without Portfolio in charge of Innovation and Technological Development Nenad Popovic, as well as the chairman of the National Council for Co-ordination of Cooperation with Russia and China, Tomislav Nikolic.

(Telegraf.co.uk / Tanjug)