President receives Russian envoy in wake of deadly accident

President receives Russian envoy in wake of deadly accident

During the meeting, Nikolic also said that "more attention should be paid to working conditions everywhere where Serbian citizens are employed."

He "underscored that such a tragedy must not have been allowed to happen, and expressed the belief that adequate lessons would be drawn from the incident so that such events would be prevented in the future," the president's press service said.

Nikolic and Chepurin also expressed regret over the recent tragic events in Ukraine and voiced their desire for the conflict to be resolved promptly, "if possible as early as during a meeting which will be staged this week."

The Russian ambassador expressed gratitude to Nikolic for the constructive attitude of the Serbian delegation in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), during a session on the participation of the delegation of the Russian Federation.

Chepurin said that his country is aware that "certain pressure" was exerted on the Serbian delegation and underscored that Russia appreciates the fact that the delegation preserved a unified and principled stand to the end.

On January 28, PACE voted to verify the Russian delegations' credentials, but at the same time suspended their voting rights and representation in the organization's main bodies. All Serbian delegates voted against the latter two decisions, passed in a resolution.