Dacic: Cooperation with UAE very important, we have strategic partnership

BELGRADE - Serbian Deputy PM and Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said on Thursday cooperation between Serbia and the UAE was very important and that a multi-faceted strategic partnership was in place.

Speaking about his just-completed visit to the UAE for the World Police Summit in Abu Dhabi, Dacic said Serbia's participation in the summit was important and that the cooperation with the UAE was very good.

"Based on an agreement on strategic partnership and the great personal friendship between Sheikh Mohamed and our president Aleksandar Vucic, we have signed an agreement with the Dubai police earlier, and I now signed an agreement with the Abu Dhabi police. I had a good meeting with my counterpart, the deputy PM and interior minister, who is brother to Sheikh Mohamed," Dacic said on Prva TV.

He said he had invited his counterpart to visit Belgrade, and added that the visit would be significant.

"We might be unaware of how much assistance we have received from them (the UAE) to date in terms of donations of various equipment and in terms of innovations such as the construction of a smart police station. That is something they have made - you have a station with almost no police officers and everything is done digitally and automatically, from misdemeanor charges to issuance or extension of licences and everything else. In our country, one such station has been set up at the Belgrade Waterfront and we plan to do several more of those," Dacic said, adding that the first smart police station in Serbia had also been funded by the UAE.