The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, stated this evening in New York, at the session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), that Belgrade supports the actions of US President Donald Trump’s administration because he sees in its work an opportunity to establish a fairer global order and a more responsible attitude towards Serbia.
Speaking at the General Debate during the 81st session of the UNGA, Vučić said that today, with the exception of a few countries, everyone is speaking out and invoking the UN Charter and the principles “upon which the until-recently valid world order was founded,” which have been “brutally trampled upon by powerful and large countries.”
“How many times in the past two days could you hear calls from this rostrum for respect for the principles of public international law, especially when it comes to the conflict in Ukraine? Most of those countries shamelessly remain silent on the fact that they themselves participated in the trampling of the UN Charter, and today they would like to return to those principles when they see that the more powerful and stronger have resorted to the same violations that they carried out while they were the most powerful and strongest,” said Vučić.
He added that “by this, he means all the countries that recognised the unilaterally proclaimed independence of so-called Kosovo and, without any foundation in international legal documents, tried to snatch 14 percent of Serbia’s territory.”
“To many of you, this sounds like the distant past, but the wounds inflicted on public international law are growing deeper and heavier. To be completely precise, the order of respect for the UN Charter and the law based upon it no longer exists. It was demolished by those who tore apart the territories of other countries for the sake of their own political and economic interests. They did it unscrupulously, recklessly, and shamelessly,” said Vučić.
He stated that the NATO attack “on Serbia, a small but free and freedom-loving country, was carried out in 1999 with the desire to finally destroy the UN order established after the Second World War, and to ensure that the domination of the then-unisonous Western world – America and Europe – be formally and informally confirmed.”
“Do you know which countries participated in making the decision in the UN Security Council on the bombing of an independent and sovereign country that did not attack any other country? Do not even bother trying, because such a decision was never even made, and to make matters worse, no one even tried to make it. They were so arrogant and powerful that they trampled everything in their path. From the administration of Bill Clinton to the administrations of numerous European countries,” stated Vučić.
He added that Serbia “precisely for this reason supports the actions of President Donald Trump’s administration and sees in his work an opportunity for the establishment of a fairer global order and a more responsible attitude towards Serbia as a close American ally from both world wars.”
Vučić also said that Serbia has “risen like a phoenix from the ashes” and that today, “by its example, it shows everyone in the world how to preserve the international order and protect public international law.”
“The consequences of that brutal attack on Serbia are immense and particularly visible on numerous battlefields around the world, because principles no longer exist. Those who once trampled upon them have no moral right to speak about them. To make the situation even worse, and the hypocrisy even more visible, precisely those and such figures assume the position of supreme teachers of morality and every kind of protection of contemporary world values,” said Vučić.
He stated that the Serbian people cannot accept “the reawakening of the most terrifying ghosts of the past,” accusing Croatia of priding itself on its Nazi past and the use of Nazi slogans and symbols.
“For us in Serbia, it is hardest when we see in our surroundings the resurgence of nazism on the pedestal of social values, particularly in Croatia, which prides itself both on its Nazi past and on the use of Nazi slogans and symbols today,” said Vučić.
He noted that “the Serbian people, who suffered the most at Nazi hands, cannot accept the reawakening of the most terrifying ghosts of the past responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, and Roma in monstrous concentration camps such as Jasenovac.”
“Precisely for this reason, the moral lectures we hear from such people are completely unacceptable to the Serbian people and Serbia,” added Vučić.
Vučić also said that he wants to warn all countries of the Global South about the tricks that major powers use in their relations with smaller countries. “For all the agreements you sign with major powers, keep all four eyes open. We signed the Brussels Agreement in 2013, desiring to resolve the problems between Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija through compromise. All the obligations that Serbia had were fulfilled, and the single one that the Albanians had – concerning the formation of the Community of Serb Municipalities – has not been fulfilled to this day. Interestingly, the agreement was also endorsed by the signature of the EU, but that was worth nothing,” he said.
He added that as the President of Serbia, he has been “faced for 10 years with all possible tricks and pressures” to make him give up on the full implementation of what was signed in Brussels.
Vučić also said that he is grateful to “every single one of the 107 states that have not recognised the unilaterally declared independence of Kosovo.”
“We know that many of those states were exposed to pressures and we know that maintaining a principled position is sometimes much harder than it looks from the outside. Thank you for your consistency in not recognising the independence of a part of Serbia’s territory,” stated Vučić.
He also said that Serbia is on the European path and will have to do a great deal more in order to become a full member of the EU.
“Although full membership in the European Union remains a strategic priority, we cannot fail to notice the long-standing fatigue with the enlargement process, both among certain member states of the Union and among candidate states. The citizens of Serbia rightly expect a clearer perspective and more concrete results from a process in which our country has participated for more than a decade,” he said.
He also stated that Serbia’s European path “does not mean renouncing traditional friendships, thanks to which Belgrade is one of the few European capitals from which one can fly directly to the USA, China, and Russia.”
“I owe special gratitude for the support during the coronavirus pandemic, as well as for the enormous investments in Serbia, to Chinese President Xi Jinping, with the hope that his talks with President Trump will be productive and contribute to the stabilisation of circumstances in the world,” he added.
Vučić also said that Serbia simultaneously fosters ties with traditional friends and partners in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, with whom it recently marked in Belgrade the 65th anniversary of the first conference of the Non-Aligned Movement.
He stated that the United Nations may be needed by the world more than ever, but that they must be more efficient, more targeted, and better prepared to deal with the issues for which they were created.
“Serbia supports the UN and the reform of the UN system so that the Organization can be more efficient and better adapted to reality. We advocate for a more representative UN SC, through greater representation of developing countries, particularly from the African continent, as well as through more inclusive regional representation and the inclusion of an additional seat for the Eastern European group of countries. However, without returning to the principles upon which we have already agreed, I do not expect any progress regarding the concrete results of this Organization,” he stated.
At the General Debate within the 81st session of the UNGA, which runs from September 22 to 28, state leaders are speaking about global challenges and priorities, and the theme is “Rebuilding trust, managing transformation: United Nations serving all people.”
(Beta, Naslovi.net, 24.09.2026)