Šešelj "can work with SNS"; "Greater Serbia has new borders"

Šešelj "can work with SNS"; "Greater Serbia has new borders"

"Let Aleksandar Vučić and Tomislav Nikolić arrest me," Šešelj said. Reacting to the interviewer's observation that this would "bring the country to a check-mate position," the leader of the Radicals (SRS) asked what kind of threat Serbia would be facing if Vučić and Nikolić said they were unable to arrest him.

"Sanctions? What kind of sanctions? I am absolutely convinced that Security Council sanctions are impossible, that Russia would not allow sanctions to be imposed on Serbia because of failure to extradite me. And I can't wait to see EU's sanctions - for them to say 'we're putting an end to all negotiations on Serbia's integration until you extradite Šešelj.' Well, that I cannot wait to see," he was quoted as saying.

The magazine said the interview was "a political confession summing up a 30-year political career," were Šešelj discussed "the disintegration of the Radicals" - i.e., the 2008 split with Vučić and Nikolić that produced the Serb Progressive Party (SNS) - his relationship with the pair, as well as with Slobodan Milošević and Zoran Đinđić, Dobrica Ćosić and Vuk Drašković, Borislav Pekić and Milorad Ulemek Legija.

He also discusses "the identity of Laufer" - his purported informant - and whether it was true that he at one time "handed over his presidential election victory to the Socialists (SPS)."

Šešelj also revealed that he regretted Vučić's departure from the ranks of the Serb Radical Party more than that of Nikolić, and asserted that the party split because of Nikolić's "greed." He accused former president and leader of the Democrats (DS) Boris Tadić of acting as "the key operative" in this, and then said he himself "chased Vučić out because he was afraid he'd take over the party."

"Vučić wanted to stay in the SRS. But I was afraid that if he did, he'd take over the party," Šešelj said, and observed that "Vučić was always more intelligent than Toma (Tomislav Nikolić)."

"Neither Maja Gojković nor Vučić liked Nikolić because he outranked them (within the party) while they considered him uneducated and incapable of holding that position. They considered themselves superior to him.Vučić really was superior, no doubt about it, while Maja, after all, was not," Šešelj said, and "invited Vučić to a TV duel," adding:

"There is something manic about Vučić. He works like a machine, works incessantly. He always has a phone in his hands, toggling two, three phones, calling one person, another, intervening... and that's become his way of life."

The SNS leader told the magazine he could work with everyone who stood against the EU and in favor of cooperation with the Russian Federation, and said this included Vučić's Progressives.

"Let these now Progressives give up on the EU and then we can talk. But they'd have to say it clearly - we will not join the EU, we want integration with Russia," he said, and noted that Nikolić "ought to resign over the fake diploma."

Šešelj also reminisced about celebrating when he learned about the assassination of Zoran Đinđić while in Hauge's detention, and referred to the slain Serbian prime minister as "the little Hittle from our alley." However, he was unable to offer any facts that would back up his claim Đinđić was "a criminal," and said what he resented the most was Đinđić's decision to extradite Slobodan Milošević on St. Vitus Day (Vidovdan).

"Tomislav Nikolić was much more joyous than I was when he told me the news that Đinđić was killed. Nikolić turned out to be much greedier, in the financial sense, than Đinđić was. Đinđić was a very intelligent man, a very educated man. And somebody with a pronounced will for power. Whereas in Nikolić, it was greed that awakened."

Šešelj then asserted that his party was not giving up on the idea of "a Greater Serbia" - but remarked that its borders "have now expanded":

He explained that the party's "Greater Serbia maps" still reached the Karlobag-Ogulin-Karlovac-Virovitica line in Croatia - but that the southern borders of this proposed entity "now include northern Albania, all the way to Durres."

Šešelj also spoke in detail about his "chess games in Kotobanja" with former underworld figure and businessman turned cooperating witness Ljubiša Buha aka Čume, the reason he "borrowed money" from Dobrica Ćosić - "who wanted to send him to Noam Chomsky for specialization." He also asserted that Milošević wanted to disown his party, the Socialists (SPS), and touched on many other topics "from the 1990s" that the magazine said he "revealed publicly for the first time."

In a jibe aimed at Labor Minister Aleksandar Vulin - who asserted the United States made sure Šešelj was released from the Hague so he could "bring down the government" - the SRS leader said, "Americans sent me back to bring down Aleksandar Vulin."