Ivica Dacic, Belgrade, April 19 2023 (BETAPHOTO/AMIR HAMZAGIC)
Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic on Aug. 25 said that Belgrade had not joined the Crimea Platform although Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic had addressed this week’s summit of the initiative.
“Serbia has not joined the Crimea Platform. Premier Brnabic took part at the gathering via an online address, but Belgrade has not supported nor has endorsed the text of the Crimea Platform, because it goes beyond the framework which is acceptable to us,” Dacic told TV Pink.
At the Aug. 23 summit of the Crimea Platform, initiated by Ukraine as an international coordination mechanism with an aim of reintegrating Crimea, Brnabic said that Serbia “is not value neutral,” adding that “we genuinely empathize with the Ukrainian people and Ukraine who have a true friend in Serbia.”
Serbia has so far boycotted invitations to participate at summits of the Crimea Platform, first of which was held in August 2021. A shift has been made after the first official meeting between Serbian and Ukrainian presidents, Aleksandar Vucic and Volodymyr Zelenskyy respectively, in Athens on Aug. 22. Zelenskyy described the meeting as “open, sincere and fruitful.”
Dacic also commented on the declaration, agreed on by the Balkan leaders and top officials of the European Union, Ukraine and Moldova at an informal dinner in Athens on Aug. 21. He stressed that at Serbia’s request, the part relating to imposing sanctions against Russia and the mention of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia in the section referring to war crimes in Ukraine, had been excluded from the document.
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