Tanjug
“Serbia should react as a sovereign country and there is no reason to take symbolic steps to approve the European Union. If we do that now, it is likely that their demands would be even more difficult in some situations “, says former diplomat Milisav Paić to the criticism that the EU directed at Serbia for sending an ambassador to Syria.
EU spokesman for foreign policy and security Peter Stano stated that Serbia’s decision to raise diplomatic relations with Syria to the level of ambassador is contrary to the position of the Union. Sending the ambassador, as the EU official explained, implies handing over the credentials to the head of state – “in this case, Bashar al-Assad, who is on the EU sanctions list and has no democratic legitimacy for Brussels as president.”
However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia answered that Serbia never interrupted diplomatic relations with Syria, that the mandate of the last ambassador expired in 2013, and that due to the security situation in Syria, diplomatic relations took place at the level of temporary charge d’affaires.
On the pressure list – Bashar al-Assad
A retired diplomat, the president of the organization “Foreign Policy Circle”, Paić, has no dilemma how to look at the latest lesson held from Brussels.
– Sending the ambassador of Serbia to Damascus is a sovereign issue of the Republic of Serbia, on which it decides without the need to consult with other countries. That issue of harmonizing our foreign policy with EU policy will be on the agenda when we enter the EU. Until then, such demands and criticisms against Serbia are completely unfounded – he is clear.
He notes that everything that happened in Syria, and now the legitimacy of the government of Bashar al-Assad, the winner of the presidential elections, is being questioned, is a consequence of attempts to implement so-called internal changes, reforms and democratization of the regime in Syria. That is exactly what led to chaos in Syria, as well as other countries where the West intervened and changed the government, Paic points out.
Starting with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, through Iraq, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, wherever the West interfered, there was political chaos and instability.
Tasteless demands of the West
That is why the former ambassador believes that the EU request is absolutely illogical and that it is to call someone an illegal representative, and to challenge our right to send our ambassador to that country to interfere in the internal affairs of Serbia.
Especially when the attempt to influence our foreign policy comes at a time when Serbia has not opened a single new chapter in the negotiations with the EU on the accession of our country for two years, he added.
He even believes that these unilateral demands on issues concerning the geostrategic and geopolitical interests of the West, which we should comply with, are absolutely inadmissible and that this kind of pressure is at this stage when Serbia is still very, very far from full EU membership. -even tasteless.
Answer the calls – sovereignly
Paic is explicit in the fact that Serbia should react to the EU’s calls as a sovereign country. He says that he is not surprised by how they try to treat us. The attempt to create their political monolith is based on the fact that they will rebuke those who do not listen, but also teach lessons about foreign policy values, primarily about the character of the rule of individual states.
– I think that the standards that Brussels applies to us are not worthy of a sovereign state, while the talks on joining the EU are on a long stick. We have no reason to take any symbolic steps to approve them. If we did that now, it is likely that their demands would be even more difficult in some situations and would jeopardize the sovereign decision-making on our interests and relations with countries with which we are bound by traditional friendship and understanding – Paic concluded.
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