Lavrov: Russia, Serbia have agreed to work together to avoid damage from US sanctions on NIS

MOSCOW - Russian FM Sergey Lavrov said on Monday Russia and Serbia had agreed to continue to work together to avoid damage to their mutual interests as a result of US sanctions on Serbia's Russian majority-owned oil company NIS.

"Today we face a situation where those who are accustomed to unfair competitive struggle are trying to obstruct our joint enterprise NIS through sanctions. It is a leading enterprise of the Serbian economy, it is literally being forced to give up on cooperating with a Russian investor," Lavrov told reporters in Moscow after a meeting with Serbian FM Marko Djuric, who is on a two-day official visit to Russia.

"With our Serbian friends, we have agreed to continue to work together so as not to allow any damage to be done to our mutual interests," Lavrov said.

He said he and Djuric had discussed cooperation in the energy sector in great detail, and noted that Russia was Serbia's biggest supplier of natural gas, meeting up to 85 pct of the country's natural gas needs.

Lavrov added that certain forces in the West did not like the lawful and mutually beneficial cooperation between Serbia and Russia and were trying to change the market situation through unfair methods.

"In essence, the line we have already seen in the majority of EU countries continues - cheap, available and safe Russian gas is being suppressed with the aim of replacing it with American liquefied gas at much higher prices. Even European leaders themselves are starting to talk about this aloud," Lavrov said.