How far away are we from reaching an agreement? Vucic's message: Tactical battle continues

After his visit to New York, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic emphasized that our situation regarding Kosovo and Metohija is very difficult, very complicated and complex, but that in tactical terms we should look to move forward everything we can in order to create a more favorable position for our people and country.

In a statement for TV Prva, summarizing his talks in New York with representatives of big powers about territorial integrity, Vucic said that only Sergei Lavrov spoke about our territorial integrity, while others said that we violate someone else's territorial integrity.

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"The tactical fight will continue, and I could speak strategically only if we had some kind of framework agreement in our heads and that would be a strategic decision," he explained.

Vucic said that we are still far from an agreement, and that it's about people's brains - what wishes both Serbs and Albanians have, whether we can understand what awaits us in the future, or if we cannot understand each other, and that this is not a matter of months and years.

Foto: Predsedništvo Srbije

"It coul happen in five months, it could be in 50 years, and it could be never," - Vucic answered when asked if we were months or years away from an agreement.

Commenting on his own speech, when he said it was good that Serbia was not mentioned by others at the UN General Assembly, Vucic said that he opted for an approach which received the support of Asians, Africans and many other freedom-loving nations.

"They gather us here like children to come see what the big ones are saying. 2,000 of us gather, listen, pray to God they don't mention us, and then we're happy. I said - they're big, they're always going to decide on many things, but let's see what we can decide. Let us cooperate more, preserve our freedom-loving spirit, independence in decision-making, but also our sovereignty and territorial integrity, and look at how to fight for our rights as small countries," he explained.

Asked about the initiative for closer economic cooperation in the Western Balkans through the removal of barriers, he said that it was not a question of unification, because whenever unification is mentioned some begin to speak about Serbian hegemony.

PHOTO: TANJUG/FILIP KRAINCANIC

In connection to this, he said that Serbia would soon become the economic engine of the region, which is why there is such reaction. He pointed out that it's  important for the countries of the region to understand that they are benefiting, for our people to understand that we are acting as a bloc because we will be much more respected in Europe that way.

"The Visegrad Group, for example, can replace Timmermans and Weber at any time. The European Parliament may not accept Hungary's representative for the European Commission, but it cannot prevent (the commissioner) coming from that country. Their strength is enormous, much greater, while we go after the crumbs, attacking others from the region, contenting ourselves with saying something bad to the big ones about others, and the big ones then saying that they will always keep our region quarreling so they can do whatever they want and extract all the riches," he said.

Vucic called for a reduction in operating costs, freeing up of boundaries for freight vehicles. According to him, this will not be easy to accomplish, but there is agreement between him and the prime ministers of Albania and North Macedonia.

"We'll move forward with this initiative in 15 days during a meeting in Serbia. I believe this is important. Then we'll go to North Macedonia, Albania, and try to push that. Then we will try to pull Pristina and Bosnia Herzegovina in, and that would be something like 'CEFTA++'. Everything we achieve would mean strengthening our economic performance, representing a single market, which would lead to the arrival of many more investors and create a more favorable atmosphere for development," he said.

Asked about the reception organized by Donald Trump, Vucic said a dinner that he had at the end of his visit was more interesting, but that he couldn't reveal any details about it.

"I'm not a reception person," he said.

(Telegraf.rs/Tanjug)