UNESCO membership won't be discussed in Brussels - PM

UNESCO membership won't be discussed in Brussels - PM

The organization's General Conference earlier in the week rejected the application.

"They created a wide campaign also with some Islamic countries, with big support from the United States, Great Britain, and Germany. On top of that, they even started yelling, while in Brussels, (Kosovo) Albanians were threatening they to say we invented ever talking about it, because that was normal, that (Pristina's membership in UNESCO) was certainly going to pass. Their tactic was, 'We'll push everything against Serbia, and everything that is not up to Serbia, while where Serbia is necessary to us we will negotiate and force Serbia to make compromises'," Vucic said, and added:

"But those are not really compromises, that's Serbia that must make concessions. We asked to talk about everything. No, they didn't want to. Since they did not want UNESCO to be discussed in Brussels, UNESCO is not being discussed in Brussels."

Asked whether it was possible to return the issue of the southern Serbian province to the United Nations, Vuci said "that can hardly be done," and added:

"But it's important that we are committed to the dialogue in Brussels - but the UN is a very important segment and a very important place where many things are decided on."

"There is a kind of confusion in our country, among our people, because people have not read the Brussels agreement carefully. Many were making things up in newspapers about us having to support (Pristina) joining every organization. That's not true at all. That was one of the reasons I didn't want to accept the original proposal of the Brussels agreement, which said we should support them in joining the UN. All other ministers, except (Aleksandar) Vulin and me, were in favor of accepting that - both (Ivica) Dacic and Suzana Grubjesic, and all the others who were there at the time," Vucic said.

"I said that was out of the question. Then the pressure came, and I said we will never accept that despite everything. Then they changed it, and it was said we will not obstruct them (Pristina) on the road of European integrations. And it is not us who decide on European integrations, Brussels does. Brussels rewarded them with the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA), Brussels will reward them with visa liberalization, while they backtracked on what they signed, which I find astonishing," said the prime minister.

During the same interview, Vucic remarked that if Serbia's relations with Russia were different, the EU would give its foreign policy highest marks.