Dacic: Serbia will not turn its back on friends

BELGRADE - Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said Monday that Serbia currently had no obligation to join the foreign and security policy pursued by the EU regarding the Ukrainian crisis.

“We, of course, will not turn our back on our friends, but on the other hand, we need to know what are priorities are, i.e., we cannot be against EU positions on many other countries that are not Russia,” Dacic said after opening the exhibition ‘Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the League of Nations’ at the Archives of Yugoslavia.

He cited the case of Rwanda in the past where Serbia had not joined a declaration on measures taken against that country.

Responding to a reporter's question about the construction of the South Stream pipeline, Dacic said that problems arose in the Brussels-Moscow relationship and Serbia would not be able to contribute much to their solutions.

“We expect these problems to be solved, because some other pipelines, such as the Nord Stream project, were built without problems. I do not believe anyone would take liberties to endanger the energy security and stability of the citizens in this part of Europe, including Serbia,” said Dacic.

He confirmed that Serbia has not made any decision about suspending the construction of South Stream through Serbia, adding that there was a common interest in building the pipeline.