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AUTHOR:
DATE AND TIME:
03.10.2020. 11:25
The agreement on the normalization of economic relations between Belgrade and Pristina, which was signed at the White House in early September, will not lead to a turnaround in Serbian foreign policy or the renouncement of the association with Russia and China, although more and more Westerners have such expectations. in Washington.
Vesli Klark, Photo: EPA / POOL / Julie JACOBSON
One of them is retired US General Wesley Clark, NATO commander-in-chief at the time of the 1999 bombing of Serbia, who used the Washington agreement to “hit” Serbia, Moscow, and Beijing once again, and is obviously concerned about his private coal exploration business in Kosovo. .
In his opinion, the document signed by the Serbian head of state, Aleksandar Vučić, and the president of the temporary institutions in Priština, Avdulah Hoti, “will only be useful if the influence of Russia and China in the region is reduced.”
– Vučić’s policy of being based on four pillars – Washington, Brussels, Beijing and Moscow – can only be viable if the President of Serbia can control the influence of foreign investors through his security services. When China and Russia invest, they expect a certain political concession in return. A particular handicap to faster progress in the region is the Kremlin’s effort to make the Western Balkans as a whole in its sphere of interest, said Clark, who in a previous “attack” on Moscow accused Russian President Vladimir Putin ” to wait for his chance to provoke a new war. ” Balkans “.
Dejan S. Miletić of the Center for the Study of Globalization says for “Novosti” that anyone who thinks that the Washington Accord is a “guarantor” of our turn in foreign policy is naive:
– Certainly, it will not happen that Serbia renounces its good relations and alliances with Moscow and Beijing, and even less if threats and blackmail are presented to our country. Our cooperation with Russia and China in no way violates what we have committed to in the agreement on the normalization of relations with Pristina.
Wesley Clark, Photo: Illustration
For political analyst Nemanja Starovic, General Clark’s principled support for the agreement confirms a change in the general climate within Washington that has led individuals like the former NATO commander to modify their once quite extreme views:
– However, Clark consciously ignores the well-known fact that political conditioning is probably even more pronounced in Serbia’s relations with the West, mainly with the EU. It would be good if Clark also supported the rapprochement in political relations between the United States and Serbia, with the awareness that there can be no stable order in the Balkans if the United States does not accept us as a partner and not as an eternal antagonist whose interests are ignored. or repressed for the benefit of others. regional actors.
Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin tells “Novosti” that “even if someone thinks it is time to forget about NATO aggression, they will quickly abandon that thought as soon as Wesley Clark appears”:
– The commander of the attack in which three-year-old Milica Rakić and 11-month-old Bojana Tošović were killed should rather apologize than tell the Serbs what to do and who our friends are. Russia and China are our friends and they have never conditioned, bombed or sanctioned us.
Aleksandar Vulin, Photo: private archive
Vulin recalled that Russia is part of our history, but also the country and the people with whom we want to share the future. In his opinion, whenever Russia was powerful, Serbia was safer and stronger.
– Vučić is the only statesman in Europe who is not and will not impose any sanctions on Russia. China is a distant country for us, but we share the same values with it and we have sincere respect and many joint economic activities. When it was difficult for us and when everyone was fighting for a mask and a respirator, China took it off and gave it to us. Serbs choose their friends themselves, and their enemies manifest and acknowledge, without our desire and will.
Four years ago, the Pristina government granted the energy company Envidity Energy Inc, chaired by Clark, the right to explore rich coal reserves in more than a third of the territory of Kosovo and Metohija. According to many, it is a kind of reward for the former commander of the NATO joint forces during the bombing of Serbia, who is a hero to most Kosovar Albanians. Numerous streets are named after him in Peja, Prizren, Vushtrri and Ferizaj.
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