Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic was in Rome on Wednesday where he met with Italian Deputy PM and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. According to announcements, Vucic discussed the Kosovo-Metohija issue with Salvini, whom he sees as one of Europe’s most influential politicians.
Despite a differing stance on the Kosovo issue, Italy understands Serbia’s position, Vucic said in Rome after the meeting. He added they had discussed the issue and that Salvini had told him Italy – which recognizes Kosovo – wanted to be a part of a solution and to help in every possible way.
“I think we can count on Italy as a sincere friend and on Salvini as a friend of our country, which is no small thing for Serbia,” Vucic told reporters. He said they had also discussed the 1999 NATO aggression on Serbia and that he had told Salvini the Serb wounds caused by it remained very open and grave today.
Vucic and Salvini also talked about bilateral relations and Italy’s support on Serbia’s European path.
Salvini is an advocate of reconsidering Italy’s recognition of Kosovo’s independence, media reports said on Wednesday ahead of the meeting. After Rome, Vucic traveled to Tirana for a meeting with EU foreign policy and security chief Federica Mogherini, with whom he already met at last week’s Berlin summit.
He will on Thursday attend a Brdo-Brijuni Process meeting, whose special guest will be Polish President Andrzej Duda.
In the meantime, Vucic was in in Beijing where he spoke on the topic of Kosovo and Metohija with Chinese President Xi Jinping and with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Last week in Berlin, at the Summit organized by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, he argued that Serbia was ready to continue the dialogue, but only after the abolition of Pristina’s tariffs.
After that meeting, the president assessed that neither the international community nor the domestic public had accepted his plan to resolve the Kosovo issue, that is, as he said earlier, the idea of delimitation.
Vucic announced that after all these meetings, he will speak with Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija, and that he will announce what measures Belgrade will take due to the unilateral moves of Pristina made so fa, above all – the introduction of “anti-civilization” tariffs on goods from central Serbia.
See at: https://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics.php?yyyy=2019&mm=05&dd=09&nav_id=106790
