FM cannot confirm Vienna meeting with Putin

FM cannot confirm Vienna meeting with Putin

Dačić could not confirm that he would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday during his stay in Vienna as was previously reported by Austrian media.

Dačić told reporters on Monday that he "does not know whether the meeting will take place as he will visit Vienna in the organization by OSCE and President Putin is due to pay a bilateral visit to Austria."

The meeting was envisaged in the previous agenda but it is still uncertain whether it will actually take place, he said.

Dačić said that Serbia will in mid-July present to the Permanent Council of the OSCE its chairmanship plan for the next year, and explained that Serbia "intends to show that it is a serious country and take advantage of this opportunity to restore the reputation that it previously enjoyed in the international community."

"Chairing the OSCE might have been easy when we got to the presidency, however, political circumstances have led to the fact that it is a very complicated job, as members of the organization are countries from Vancouver to Vladivostok," Dačić said during a break in the Serbian Economic Summit in Belgrade.

Asked whether the plan will include "an innovative approach to the involvement of the OSCE in the Ukrainian crisis, if it is prolonged," Dačić said that the Serbian presidency "will be discussed in the coming months with the most important leaders in Europe and worldwide, and it is essential that it takes place in coordination with them."

Dačić said that he would like Belgrade to host the Summit of Heads of State or Government of the OSCE during the Serbian presidency, and noted that "if there is general agreement, that is, if it is possible to hold the gathering in a positive atmosphere, this will happen."

Failing that, Belgrade will in December of next year "certainly be the host of the Committee of Ministers of Foreign Affairs," the foreign minister explained.

Earlier in the day, the MFA statement said that Dačić will on Tuesday take part in the meeting of foreign ministers of the OSCE Troika, where he will have a chance to exchange opinions with OSCE Chair Didier Burkhalter and Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Pavlo Klimkin concerning the most important issues from the OSCE sphere of work.

The OSCE annual security review conference on security is the most important event in terms of the OSCE military political dimension and it gathers high-profile representatives from OSCE member countries.

The conference agenda will focus on the crisis in Ukraine, issues of improvement of security and stability, crisis management and conflict solving, transnational threats and challenges and the issues from the arms control sector.

As the future chair, the Republic of Serbia became a member of the Troika on January 1, 2014.