Dacic: Good job done for Serbia in Jakarta

JAKARTA - Serbian FM Ivica Dacic said on Tuesday a good job for Serbia had been done in Jakarta, where he on Monday signed a document on Serbia's accession to the ASEAN treaty.

After attending the official opening ceremony of the 43rd ASEAN summit in Jakarta, Dacic said ASEAN had been in existence for over 50 years.

Signing the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia does not make Serbia an ASEAN member state, Dacic said, noting that Serbia had acceded to the treaty.

"It (the ASEAN region) is a territory with a population of over 600 mln and a GDP worth thousands of billions of dollars that, as they themselves say, represents the epicentre of economic growth. That is important for our country because we now have an external trade volume of around 700 mln dollars and we expect it to possibly exceed 1 bln dollars this year," Dacic told Serbian reporters.

"We are the 52nd state or international organisation to accede to the treaty and it has nothing to do with our European integration... Like Serbia, the EU itself has acceded to the treaty and so have the US, Canada, China and Russia. For us, that is also important for strengthening bilateral relations with those (ASEAN) countries," Dacic said, noting that ASEAN member states were friendly countries and that the majority of them did not recognise the so-called Kosovo.

"I had an opportunity to speak with colleagues from those countries," he said.

When asked if he had spoken with officials of states that recognised the so-called Kosovo, Dacic said Thailand, Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore were the recognisers among ASEAN states.

"I have spoken with representatives of Singapore and Brunei and I can say it is partly our fault because we were not present in this region at the time they were making their decisions about recognising Kosovo, and their question was 'Where were you at the time?'" Dacic noted.

He said Serbia would speak with those countries despite their decisions to recognise the so-called Kosovo to ensure they respected Serbia's position and did not support Pristina's bids to join international organisations.

It is important that Indonesia, which has a population of over 270 mln, maintains a firm position on respect of international law, Dacic also said.