Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic, who will attend the traditional national prayer breakfast in Washington on Thursday, said this morning that he had very good meetings with U.S. administration officials at the U.S. Congress and State Department and that they had stressed their support for reforms and objectives pursued by the Serbian government. “The United States supports the reforms in Serbia. They are satisfied with the objectives that have been set by the Serbian government and in that sense, there are good grounds for establishing a new strategic partnership in the future,” Dacic said.

Dacic said he had met with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, a number of congressmen and members of the Congressional Serbian Caucus, Congressman Emanuel Cleaver and Senator Chris Murphy.

Dacic said they all openly stated their support for the Serbian government’s efforts and Serbia in general on its road to European integration. “According to Nuland, the United States supports the way in which Serbia chairs the OSCE and supports the Serbian government’s efforts to make Serbia a factor of regional peace and stability and in this sense, it will certainly continue to support Serbia in the future,” Dacic said, adding that “the thing that we can be happy about is the fact that there are fewer and fewer open issues and problems facing our relations.”

Dacic is attending the prayer breakfast, which is traditionally held in Washington every first Thursday in February, at the invitation of U.S. President Barack Obama.

Tomorrow, Dacic will take part in a UN Security Council’s quarterly debate on the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and will meet with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the Chinese ambassador presiding over the debate.