PM says his reaction was "appropriate"

PM says his reaction was "appropriate"

He rejected the criticism that he should have responded "differently" to the provocation of the Albanian prime minister made during their joint news conference on Monday:

"If someone thinks that a serious policy would have been if I picked up a stick or struck Rama, I think it is not serious politics, and those who lecture me that I should have done something like that and say they would have done something like that, would have been very humble."

Vučić said that he would on Tuesday meet with "ambassadors of the Quint" - i.e., five leading western countries, and would, among other things, discuss yesterday's visit.

"I want to see what they think, if there is anything they hold against Serbia, if we did not show hospitality, if we demonstrated poor hospitality, whether we offended them by any word, whether we uttered an ugly or heavy word which our guests did not expect, or if we were merely protecting our integrity, pride and sovereignty of the fatherland," said Vučić.

He pointed out that Rama would again come to Belgrade for the Sino-regional summit in December and that "someone needs to tell him 'good day'," at that point, and reiterated that the policy of the government of Serbia was "responsible, serious and that of talks."

As for Rama's trip to Preševo on Tuesday, Vučić said that "everything that happened yesterday and everything that will possibly happen today speaks the least about Serbia":

"It speaks a lot about them, perhaps about someone else as well, but not about us, no one can say a bad, hard or unpleasant word about us."

He pointed out that it is known that Rama thinks Kosovo is independent, but that this was not a topic of conversation yesterday and that if the topic was to be touched on it should have been done by the hosts.

"Albania has nothing to do with Kosovo, or perhaps they once wanted to show us that the story of a Greater Albania is not only our nightmare, but also someone's dream, a pipe dream, I'm sure of it," Vučić said and pointed out that Rama yesterday "had no response" to the question "what Albania has to do with Kosovo."

Vučić added that today's meeting with the ambassadors would also be about "investments."

"We always talk about it, because investments and economics for us are the most important topics," Vučić said.