Vucevic: SNS expects answers from coalition partners about events in Novi Pazar

BELGRADE - Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) leader Milos Vucevic said on Wednesday the party expected concrete answers from its coalition partners in the executive authorities about Tuesday's events in Novi Pazar, southwestern Serbia.

"I am primarily talking about parties coming from Novi Pazar - the Raska-Polimlje region or, as some call it, Sandzak. We want to get their clear answers as to whether they condemn or support that. To us, silence means that they support it, which is absolutely unacceptable from the SNS's point of view," Vucevic said at a press conference at the party's Belgrade headquarters.

On behalf of the SNS, he condemned incidents that took place in several cities in Serbia on Tuesday, including in Novi Pazar, and said that such incidents were attempts to destabilise the country further and take clashes and feuds to the national or religious level.

"That implies a reaction from all stakeholders on the political scene, above all, from those who are responsible," Vucevic said.

After the events in Novi Pazar, blockaders saw a chance to escalate things again, intensifying clashes in the streets of other Serbian cities, he said.

Vucevic said he had seen a statement by Social Democratic Party of Serbia (SDPS) leader Rasim Ljajic - a coalition partner of the SNS - that the SDPS would speak with the SNS.

"We are waiting to see what position they will take on Friday, at that committee meeting, and hear what they will say, and we would also like Usame Zukorlic to say something from somewhere some time," Vucevic said, noting that a "close friend" of Zukorlic's had led attacks on the police in Novi Pazar on Tuesday.

"If they are dissatisfied with their position in the government, then they should tell us that, so that we know where we stand," Vucevic said, adding that, to the SNS, Bosniaks were equal citizens in Serbia.