FM reacts to statements from ex-Montenegrin PM

Serbia's Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremić says organized crime is a major obstacle to reforms necessary for the common European perspective of the region.

Izvor: Tanjug

Monday, 23.05.2011.

15:49

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Serbia's Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic says organized crime is a major obstacle to reforms necessary for the common European perspective of the region. He was responding to questions from reporters, who quoted a statement made by Milo Djukanovic over the weekend, when Montenegro's former president and prime minister pointed the finger at Serbia as "one of the key problems in the region". FM reacts to statements from ex-Montenegrin PM Jeremic said he believed it was organized crime that was the region's major problem, and emphasized its ties with "political structures". "Serbia is not the biggest problem, Serbia has done much in the past several years to make sure that relations in the region become the best possible," said he. He further asserted that those relations were now "on the highest level since the start of the wars in the 1900s", and that Serbia made "concrete moves to demonstrate its best will to solve problems through dialogue and achieve reconciliation". "Organized crime and its ties with the political establishment that we have as a leftover of the past are a much bigger problem. Combating that is one precondition for the success of European processes and I hope we will have much better cooperation next year compared to what we had before," added Jeremic. The Serbian minister was attending a conference in Brussels on Monday which also saw participation of his Montenegrin counterpart Milan Rocen, who reacted to these statements "visibly upset", said reports. According to this, Rocen "expressed doubt that Djukanovic said Serbia was the key problem in the region", and then added that "if Serbia is speaking about ties between organized crime and politics, it is doing so from its own experience". While Rocen's reaction indicated that he understood Jeremic's statements to reference Djukanovic's background - that included international organized crime investigations against him, which were later dropped - the Serbian minister clarified that he "did not have any one individual in mind". Rather, said Jeremic, he spoke about "the fact that in the past several months there had been a series of arrests and organized crime indictments in the region targeting high-ranked political officials and their associates". Vuk Jeremic (Tanjug, file)

FM reacts to statements from ex-Montenegrin PM

Jeremić said he believed it was organized crime that was the region's major problem, and emphasized its ties with "political structures".

"Serbia is not the biggest problem, Serbia has done much in the past several years to make sure that relations in the region become the best possible," said he.

He further asserted that those relations were now "on the highest level since the start of the wars in the 1900s", and that Serbia made "concrete moves to demonstrate its best will to solve problems through dialogue and achieve reconciliation".

"Organized crime and its ties with the political establishment that we have as a leftover of the past are a much bigger problem. Combating that is one precondition for the success of European processes and I hope we will have much better cooperation next year compared to what we had before," added Jeremić.

The Serbian minister was attending a conference in Brussels on Monday which also saw participation of his Montenegrin counterpart Milan Roćen, who reacted to these statements "visibly upset", said reports.

According to this, Roćen "expressed doubt that Đukanović said Serbia was the key problem in the region", and then added that "if Serbia is speaking about ties between organized crime and politics, it is doing so from its own experience".

While Roćen's reaction indicated that he understood Jeremić's statements to reference Đukanović's background - that included international organized crime investigations against him, which were later dropped - the Serbian minister clarified that he "did not have any one individual in mind".

Rather, said Jeremić, he spoke about "the fact that in the past several months there had been a series of arrests and organized crime indictments in the region targeting high-ranked political officials and their associates".

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