Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic will meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Wednesday, the Kremlin said in a press release on Tuesday.
“On December 4, the President of Russia will hold talks in Sochi with President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic, who will be in Russia on a working visit. The presidents will discuss current aspects of bilateral cooperation, as well as international and regional affairs,” the press release said.
Speaking to the Russian TASS news agency earlier in the day, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said that Belgrade has no plans to join NATO. “As for NATO membership, Serbia has a very clear position here. We don’t want to become a member of the alliance and the overwhelming majority of our citizens does not want this either. Both Serbia and NATO are satisfied by the current level of cooperation, which is very good and is constantly developing. But we don’t have any ambitions of turning it into a permanent membership. As you know, Serbia sticks to military neutrality policy, which implies not being part of any international military alliances,” the minister is quoted as saying.
The Belgrade-based Beta news agency quoted the Russian Regnum news portal which reported Vucic as saying that the Serbian authorities had decided not to go ahead with any arms purchases.