Aleksandar Vucic (Beta/President's office/Dimitrije Goll)
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Jan. 4 that he would not visit the north of Montenegro for Orthodox Christmas as he had promised earlier.
Following a meeting with Patriarch Irinej of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the president said that the authorities in Montenegro might use his visit to interpret it as an attack on Montenegro's independence and constitutional system.
"Serbia respects Montenegro's independence, however indolent and stupid I may consider the Serbian authorities were in 2006. I have made a decision not to go, and Irinej has supported it," Vucic said.
The president explained that his visit had been fully prepared, and that he knew that a mass in the Montenegrin town of Pljevlja that he was supposed to attend would have attracted between 30,000 and 40,000 Serbs, but that "a campaign" had been launched against him.
President Vucic met with Serbian Patriarch Irinej on Jan. 4 to discuss the situation in Montenegro after the adoption of a new Religious Freedoms Act. The meeting in the Patriarchate building took around half an hour, and the two officials didn't address the press.
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