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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Serbia will fight with all diplomatic means to safeguard its territorial integrity

Belgrade/Paris, 16 July 2008

Serbian Minister of Foreign Affairs Vuk Jeremic said today in Paris that Serbia will not take a single diplomatic step that will bring into question its readiness to fight with all its strength to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Vuk Jeremic

After the meeting with his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner, Jeremic reiterated that the Serbian government will never recognise an independent Kosovo and that it is ready to cooperate with the UN, the EU, Russia, and France which holds the EU presidency.

He added that cooperation in overcoming problems in Kosovo is necessary in order to create peace and a better life, first of all for Serbs in the southern province and explained that Serbia has nothing against the EU’s presence in Kosovo-Metohija, provided it is approved by the UN Security Council.

That is why we want to cooperate with the EU in order to find a modality which would not jeopardise our sovereignty and territorial integrity, but would help calm the situation in the province, Jeremic explained.

At the same time, he said that Serbia has two foreign policy priorities, and these are speeding up its European integration and continuation of the diplomatic battle for safeguarding Serbia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The Serbian foreign minister said that the decision to return ambassadors to the countries that recognised Kosovo’s independence has not been made yet, but that the government will examine all steps which Serbia can take as a sovereign state in order to fulfil the above-mentioned priorities.

Jeremic said that the talks with Kouchner focused on the European future of the Western Balkans and Serbia’s ambition to obtain EU candidate status during France’s EU presidency, before the end of the year.

He voiced hope that the current institutional crisis in the EU will be solved in such a way as not to close the doors to further EU enlargement.

Kouchner told the reporters that he welcomes the formation of the new Serbian government, and that it is his deepest wish that Serbia obtains EU candidate status by the end of the year.

From Paris, Jeremic will travel to Moscow, where he will meet on July 17 with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and discuss the issue of Kosovo-Metohija and on July 18 he will travel to New York to talk with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon about the possible reconfiguration of the UN mission in Kosovo-Metohija.