Serbia's international position significantly improved

BELGRADE - Serbia's international position has improved significantly, and the country is now more often referred to in terms of solving problems, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said on Saturday.

"Serbia is very well-spoken of in all important places in the world, which is also contributing significantly to the way we will resolve our key problems, in particular the Kosovo issue," Dacic told reporters.

At a conference titled European Tragedy of 1914 and the Multipolar World of 2014: Lessons Learned, organised by the Centre for International Relations and Sustainable Development (CIRSD), Dacic noted that he is not fully satisfied, because "the old prejudice and way of thinking still persist, implying that pressuring Serbia can lead to achieving some objectives that it will definitely not consent to."

Conferences such as this one, organised by the CIRSD, are of great significance, said Dacic, thanking everyone who accepted the invitation to attend and the organisation itself, headed by Vuk Jeremic.

"This is a current topic and will remain so over the next four years..., not in terms of going back in the past, but learning the lessons of what happened as a new world order was being built," Dacic said, adding that World War I is one of the gravest historical events for Serbia, in which it lost almost half of its population.

Serbia belongs in Europe and wants to be a full-fledged EU member, as well as to continue to develop its friendly relations with Russia and China and seek a new partnership with the United States, with which it sided in both world wars, Dacic said.

Our foreign policy is based on seeking common interests with developing countries, he said.

Dacic also said that the...