Vucic: Time for trust, cooperation

SARAJEVO - Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday that he is visiting Sarajevo as a friend, a representative of a country that respects the territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as Republika Srpska - and a country that wants to build trust and incomparably better relations.

"I expect to see the same wish in Bosnia and Herzegovina. There does not need to be much love, but there needs to be respect and esteem. You have that on the Serbian side," Vucic told a press conference after a meeting with the Chairman of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Council of Ministers Vjekoslav Bevanda.

"That is the most honest thing Serbia can do, and also what Serbia wants from Bosnia," he stressed.

Responding to allegations in the press, Vucic was quick to clear all doubts about how Sarajevo became the destination of his first visit.

"No one has made me come. I have read various made-up stories about this, but I am the one making the decisions. That is a message to those who think that Europeans or Turkey were working on this visit," Vucic said.

Asked by reporters which the "real" Vucic is - the one who was a nationalist in the 1990s, or the one who on Monday said that nothing can destroy Bosnia and Herzegovina - the Serbian prime minister responded that many people have failed to realise what changes have occurred in the world and the region, adding that he has no intention of endearing himself to the Bosnian public or responding to media speculations.

"Some people simply do not understand what happened in the meantime. Just like people in Serbia had not understood what happened after the fall of the Berlin Wall, some people here did not understand what happened, and I am sorry about that,"...