Vucic: US to go ahead with NIS sanctions, Russians unwilling to cede ownership

BELGRADE - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Friday he believed the US would go ahead with sanctions on Serbia's Russian majority-owned oil company NIS and that he fiercely opposed a nationalisation of the firm without a deal with the Russian side, while the Russians were simply unwilling to cede ownership of the company.

Asked by reporters by what time a US response about the sanctions could be expected to arrive, Vucic responded:

"That is not happening - they will go ahead with the sanctions, and we will try to see what we can do."

"If we said 'we will nationalise it tomorrow', they would delay (the sanctions) as much as they want. I hope we will find a solution, some kind of an agreement, without such things. We cannot take away property just like that. It is alright to freeze property, but you cannot sell on property that is not yours. There are certain rules and certain norms in the world," Vucic added.

You cannot take someone else's property without providing fair compensation, he said.

"We have friends in the world who would like to help us and pay more than the realistic price and take it (NIS), and so on, but the Russians do not want that. Their interests are political, and economic, and it is all logical," Vucic said.