Djuric: Serbia conducting balanced foreign policy

BELGRADE - Serbia is conducting a balanced foreign policy and seeking good relations with all the relevant factors in the world, as well as with its traditional friends, FM Marko Djuric said on Tuesday, noting that Serbia had a steely friendship and a strategic partnership with China and cherished its relationship with Russia, and that it had recently launched strategic dialogue with the US.

He noted that the strategic dialogue with the US, launched in Washington last week, was conducive to bolstering regional peace, stability and security, and to an expansion of cooperation in the economy, the energy sector, education, science and technology, infrastructure, telecommunications and digitalisation as well as in building a common, more prosperous future.

Speaking about Serbia's foreign policy, Djuric said a list of meetings he, President Aleksandar Vucic, Parliament Speaker Ana Brnabic, PM Djuro Macut and other government ministers had had at home and abroad with the most influential foreign officials in the past year or two showed that Serbia was conducting a balanced policy.

"It is a policy that, first and foremost, is in line with our national interests. As a small country with limited resources, in extremely complex, difficult and challenging times, we have succeeded in covering the entire world diplomatically and politically," Djuric told Politika in an interview.

The launch of strategic dialogue with the US is exceptionally important as the relations between the two countries are being raised to the level of strategic partnership, with US institutions sending a message that Serbia is perceived as a partner and a friendly country, he said.

"We want to have good relations with all the relevant factors in the world, as well as with our traditional friends. Evidently, we cherish good relations with the world's biggest powers," Djuric said.

"I think that such a multi-vector policy, based on independence, sovereignty and military neutrality, is the most correct course for the country," he said.

Djuric reiterated that full EU membership was Serbia's strategic commitment and that Belgrade strongly advocated strengthening of stability and cooperation in the region as well as overcoming of outstanding issues from the past that remained a burden to mutual relations.