"Good relations with Holland vital"

Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremić has highlighted the importance of reestablishing good relations with Holland.

Izvor: Beta

Thursday, 29.01.2009.

09:16

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Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic has highlighted the importance of reestablishing good relations with Holland. “It’s paramount that they should be reestablished, that our bilateral relations should warm up and that Holland should gain a direct insight into what Serbia’s political priorities are, including cooperation with the Hague Tribunal,” Jeremic told daily Vecernje Novosti. "Good relations with Holland vital" The minister said that it was therefore significant that Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen had accepted Jeremic’s invitation to visit Serbia. Asked whether during their conversation in Brussels, Verhagen had made it clear that Ratko Mladic’s arrest was the “only proof” of full cooperation with the Hague Tribunal or whether there could be any other indicators, Jeremic said that what would help Holland change its position was if any doubts could be dispelled that what Serbia was doing “is full cooperation with the Hague Tribunal.” “My feeling is that Holland could be ready to support unfreezing of the EU-Serbia agreement if all suspicions were banished that what we’re doing right now is indeed full cooperation with the Tribunal. It would really help if [Hague Chief] Prosecutor [Serge] Brammertz used precisely that term in his next report,” said Jeremic. The minister added that Serbian diplomacy’s mission was to inform international public opinion on Serbia’s commitment to cooperation with the Hague. “In public, there are those who say that it would be better to devote our attention to cooperation with the Tribunal, rather than convincing ‘people around the world’. We’re doing both at the same time. I hope it will bear fruit,” he said. Jeremic said that he was hopeful when it came to scrapping the visa regime this year. “Everything I heard from our European colleagues on Monday leads me to being hopeful when it comes to establishing a visa-free regime this year. We’ve already achieved this in a diplomatic sense, as no EU countries oppose it politically. We have a Road Map before us, I hope we’ll get through it by the end of the year, and that in early 2010, at the latest, citizens will be able to travel to Europe without visas.” Vuk Jeremic (Tanjug, archive)

"Good relations with Holland vital"

The minister said that it was therefore significant that Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen had accepted Jeremić’s invitation to visit Serbia.

Asked whether during their conversation in Brussels, Verhagen had made it clear that Ratko Mladić’s arrest was the “only proof” of full cooperation with the Hague Tribunal or whether there could be any other indicators, Jeremić said that what would help Holland change its position was if any doubts could be dispelled that what Serbia was doing “is full cooperation with the Hague Tribunal.”

“My feeling is that Holland could be ready to support unfreezing of the EU-Serbia agreement if all suspicions were banished that what we’re doing right now is indeed full cooperation with the Tribunal. It would really help if [Hague Chief] Prosecutor [Serge] Brammertz used precisely that term in his next report,” said Jeremić.

The minister added that Serbian diplomacy’s mission was to inform international public opinion on Serbia’s commitment to cooperation with the Hague.

“In public, there are those who say that it would be better to devote our attention to cooperation with the Tribunal, rather than convincing ‘people around the world’. We’re doing both at the same time. I hope it will bear fruit,” he said.

Jeremić said that he was hopeful when it came to scrapping the visa regime this year.

“Everything I heard from our European colleagues on Monday leads me to being hopeful when it comes to establishing a visa-free regime this year. We’ve already achieved this in a diplomatic sense, as no EU countries oppose it politically. We have a Road Map before us, I hope we’ll get through it by the end of the year, and that in early 2010, at the latest, citizens will be able to travel to Europe without visas.”

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