Dacic receives Botswana's Mokgware

BELGRADE - Serbia and Botswana are connected by a friendship that has lasted for more than half a century, and it needs to be maintained by boosting cooperation, Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said after a meeting with Botswana's Minister of Labour and Home Affairs Pius Mokgware on Wednesday, and noted that Serbia was interested in a strategic partnership with Botswana in multiple sectors.

Dacic highlighted Botswana's principled position on the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Serbia, as well as its support for Serbia in international organisations.

"The Republic of Botswana has a stable and firm position when it comes to the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Serbia and it has voted against the so-called Kosovo's admission to UNESCO and Interpol," an official statement quoted Dacic as saying.

Thanking Mokgware for Botswana's position, Dacic noted that the good bilateral relations must be maintained by exchanging top-level visits and through cooperation between state authorities.

He said Serbia was interested in a strategic partnership with Botswana in multiple sectors - agriculture, IT, tourism, as well as in migration and administrative affairs within the authority of the Interior Ministry.

Dacic said Botswana was among the top five richest nations in Africa with a high economic growth rate and that it wanted its citizens to be educated and trained in Serbia, and added that Botswana had a well-organised Serb community that had even built a church in the country.

Mokgware, who is on an official visit to Belgrade, said his country saw Serbia as an important partner with which Botswana's new government wanted to strengthen cooperation in all areas of mutual interest.

He added that he agreed with Dacic that there was space to step up bilateral economic and business cooperation, as well as cooperation in technological development.