Djuric: Washington visit opportunity for strategic positioning of Serbia

WASHINGTON - Serbian FM Marko Djuric said on Wednesday in Washington his visit to the US and a discussion with State Secretary Marco Rubio were extremely important for a new strategic positioning of Serbia with the new US administration.

"This visit is an enormous opportunity for Serbia to, early on, relatively at the beginning of the new administration's work, start strategic cooperation with the new administration as the first such country in the region. I think that, in the coming weeks and months, we will see more results and more concrete steps. The very fact that, as a minister, I am here as practically one of the first people from the region is an act of respect and a sincere wish for something to change for the better," Djuric told Tanjug.

He noted that Serbia had the responsibility to find a way to achieve that and turn a new page in Serbia-US relations.

He said Rubio had clearly conveyed that US President Donald Trump's personal desire for better relations with Serbia was also the position of the US administration.

Djuric said he had also spoken with Brendan Hanrahan, senior bureau official of the US State Department Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, covering a range of topics.

He said that he would also meet with the US envoy for hostages to ask for assistance towards a release of Serbian-Israeli national Alon Ohel, who is being held in the Gaza Strip.

Asked if he had discussed US import tariffs with Rubio, Djuric said they had touched upon that topic as well but that tariff talks were primarily in the domain of public finance and trade institutions.

"I expressed the expectation that our growing, quality relations would be reflected in that topic, too, but our teams will continue to negotiate," he said.

Djuric said it was important for Serbia to continue to receive US investments, "and to resolve issues such as double taxation and other topics through strategic dialogue, so that the cooperation between our economies continues to flourish, as has been the case in the past several years."

"I believe that many people are unaware that our trade in the IT and software sector is worth billions of dollars at annual level," Djuric said.