Vucic reiterates call to US to grant licence to NIS

MIONICA - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on Wednesday reiterated a call to the US to grant an operating licence to Serbia's Russian majority-owned oil company NIS until the conclusion of talks about a change of ownership of the firm.

NIS is under US sanctions due to its Russian-majority ownership.

"I still do not know what the US decision is. I call on them once again to make a positive decision. I do not know what it is, I call on them once again. Whatever it is, we will handle that with much fewer problems than some people thought. Of course, there will be problems and things will not be easy or simple in the next 50 days. But we will get through that and endure it anyway," Vucic told residents of Mionica, western Serbia, noting that the problems would be felt minimally.

That, too, shows the strength of the state, he said.

"We will show that, to us, morale is the most important thing, that we who are in politics think that morale is important," Vucic said.

"The Serbs are like that in difficult times as well, not only when it is nice and easy," he noted.

Vucic said Serbia was able to survive for a hundred days without oil supplies.

"Just think about which country, how many countries in the world would be able to handle that," he said.

Vucic said Serbia had received no oil from a Croatian pipeline for almost 50 days now, and that Croatia had halted oil supplies to Serbia on the first day of the US sanctions on NIS.