Dacic: Our achievements in international arena will go down in history

BELGRADE - Serbian Deputy PM and Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said on Monday evening Serbia's current international position was quite different compared to 2008 or 2012 and that its achievements in the international arena would go down in national history.

In an appearance on a Happy TV talk show, Dacic said Serbia had had no say about anything in 2008 and that, at the time, 80 countries had recognised the so-called Kosovo in a year.

The fact a certain number of countries have derecognised the so-called Kosovo is a great diplomatic success for Serbia, he said.

"Had we not shifted that balance, had 28 countries not derecognised it, we would still have an impasse over Kosovo-Metohija," Dacic said, adding that the situation regarding a recent vote on a UNGA resolution on Srebrenica would have been different, too.

He said that, as Serbia's FM, he had been in contact with the FMs of 73 countries and that Serbia had dispatched envoys to explain to UN member states the vote was contrary to the UN Charter and that there was no consensus on it even within Bosnia and Herzegovina itself.

He said Germany had proposed the resolution to shift the blame, ignoring its own crimes in WWII.

"They are trying to lecture us on Serbia and our people," Dacic said.

He said actions being taken by Western powers were aimed at legitimising all they had done in the 1990s, including the 1999 NATO aggression on Serbia, sanctions, pressure and the secession of Kosovo-Metohija.

"The vote is not at all aimed at satisfying Bosnia and Herzegovina but at legitimising their policy," Dacic said.

Commenting on Montenegro's vote in favour of the resolution, Dacic said that, by that move, the country had "spat not only on Serbia but on itself as well."