Djukanovic: I Have No Business Arrangement with Vucic

Milo Djukanovic

Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic has said that his relations with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic conceal no mystery, dismissing that he has a business arrangement with him concerning the Belgrade Waterfront project.

“These matters cannot be treated as an agenda of personal relations between me and Vucic. [The claims] that we have a joint business is a complete nonsense, with no foundations whatsoever; it’s a total falcity. Our relations are civilized, with many differences. We are trying to contribute to possible relations, i.e. to regional stability,” Djukanovic said in the evening on Feb. 4.

He added that he had never accepted to assume the role of Serbia’s enemy regardless of numerous attempts from various directions to that effect, because, as he put it, of a simple and selfish reason – Montenegro, as Serbia’s neighbor, will be better off if Serbia is stable.

“I am worried about what I see in Serbia. My worries come from my best intentions. Will Serbia come out of its ‘Greater Serbia’ nationalism is a matter we will leave to Serbia. We are protecting our immunity and will not allow to be threatened,” Djukanovic said.

He also said that a decision by Milorad Dodik to refuse to agree at a Bosnia and Herzegovina Presidency session to his visit to that country was a “show-off” and does not affect either him personally or Montenegro.

The Montenegrin president also said that a media campaign in Serbia about Montenegro’s Law on Religious Freedom was worse than similar campaigns of the early Milosevic era. He added that the media in Serbia, but also in other countries of the region, suffer from a lack of professionalism, commercialization and subservience to those passing political decisions.