TIRANA, September 6 – The Slovenian foreign ministry summoned Serbian Ambassador to Slovenia Zorana Vlatković over statements that Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic made during Slovenian President Borut Pahor’s visit to Belgrade last weekend.
“We have notified the Serbian side that we are very surprised about President Vucic’s statements,” the foreign ministry said on Monday as quoted by Euractiv on Tuesday.
The statement in question was Vucic’s remark after talks with Pahor on Saturday when he was asked about whether Serbia will join EU sanctions against Russia.
“How should I explain to our citizens that we are introducing sanctions against Russia, which has not violated Serbia’s territorial integrity, but not against Slovenia, which did,” Vucic said in reference to Slovenia having recognized Kosovo’s independence.
The ministry “expressed the expectation that Serbia will not problematise our position on Kosovo in the future since Slovenia’s support for Kosovo is not directed against Serbia.”
It also reiterated Slovenia’s “determined opposition against equating Slovenia’s recognition of Kosovo with Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.”
Pahor was in Serbia in advance of the 12 September summit of the Brdo-Brijuni initiative, a platform initiated by Slovenia and Croatia dedicated to accelerating the accession of Western Balkans countries to the EU.
Slovenia declared formal independence seceding from the former Federative Republic of Yugoslavia on June 25, 1991 at the same time with Croatia. The Yugoslav Army which was under control of Serbs briefly intervened in Slovenia, but it withdrew after 10 days, effectively confirming Slovenia’s separation. Slovenia’s and Croatia’s secession was followed by North Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. But the declaration of independence by Kosovo was the only case Belgrade could not swallow and Milosevic undertook the bloody offensive against Kosovo people. It was NATO intervention which stopped the ‘butcher of the Balkans’. Vucic was Minister of Information at the time with very close links to Milosevic. / Argumentum.al
