“Serbian state policy, including its foreign policy, behaves according to the well-known principle: one step forward, two steps back. A small advantage for Russia but a lot of harm for Serbia,” Srećko Đukić, Serbia’s former ambassador to Belarus, told Danas daily, commenting on US Ambassador Christopher Hill’s statement that the US wants an explanation from Serbia on what was signed with Russia in New York, while EU Ambassador to Serbia Emanuele Giaufret expects Serbia to side with the EU and impose sanctions on Russia.
Đukić adds:“Probably no better testimony is needed for a diplomatic conclusion than this. For Moscow, it is important to have received a small benefit, to have broken through the circle of isolation, while this may cost Serbia its relations with the so-called collective West,’ Danas’ interlocutor points out. He notes that it is clear that even this blunder of Serbian diplomacy will not go unnoticed. “It remains to be seen if this is going to be the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Đukić assesses.
Mihailo Brkić, Serbia’s former ambassador to Kuwait and a member of the Srce Srbije Movement tells Danas that Giaufret and Hill’s messages are a continuation of their desire to somehow bring “our position closer to that of the EU and the US”.
“Since we have not imposed sanctions on Russia, the question is how long we can play in this intermediate zone under pressure. These can be smaller or bigger and we cannot predict them right now. Overall, our progression towards EU membership has slowed down a lot, but there could be a further slowdown. However, I do not believe that the road to the EU will stop completely. In any case, the pressure will increase,’ Brkić emphasises.
For Milovan Božilović, Serbia’s former ambassador to Austria, the signing of the agreement between Serbia and Russia – otherwise marginal in diplomatic communication – has many characteristics of an ‘unnecessary but dangerous provocation towards countries that condemn Russia for the war in Ukraine, mainly because of the circumstances under which it was done’. “The reactions of Western countries are predictably sharp, and the one who approved this act – in theory it is the government – has consciously and intentionally created further tensions with Western countries. These intentions are unclear and a type of dangerous political exhibitionism, the background of which is anybody’s guess,” says Božilović.
The US ambassador to Serbia, Christopher Hill, said yesterday that he expected an explanation from Serbia on the type of cooperation document signed with Russia, after the talks at the UN in New York. “Nobody signs anything (with Russia). It is difficult for us to understand (what Serbia has done), and we expect an explanation,” Hill said.
The EU ambassador to Serbia, Emanuele Giaufret, on the other hand, said that Serbia signed a document on cooperation with Russia “at a time when Russian aggression against a sovereign country has been going on for seven months and at a time when Russia has begun to implement its decision to mobilise 300,000 of its citizens for war and to threaten Ukraine with the use of nuclear weapons”. He said that the EU “expects Serbia to stand by its side in defence of European values and international law”.
As announced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia, the heads of diplomacy of Serbia and Russia, Nikola Selaković and Sergey Lavrov, respectively, had signed the Plan of Consultation of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the two countries for the next two years on 23 September in New York, on the sidelines of the 77th session of the UN General Assembly, in the premises of the Russian Mission to the UN. The Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs described it as a ‘technical document’.
(Danas, 27.09.2022)