President: Serbia will not join any military alliance

President: Serbia will not join any military alliance

Nikolic also "stressed that Serbia will do this in order to protects her interests and efficiently confront all security challenges in modern times," his press service said in a statement.

The president at the same time "expressed his satisfaction over he establishment of firm cooperation between Serbia and the CSTO, saying it can contribute significantly to developing the defense industry in Serbia, even by creating joint products for third markets."

CSTO is a military alliance whose members include Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.

Nikolic said that he expects "proposals on modalities of cooperation between Serbia and CSTO" to be made concrete as soon as possible, as a result of Bordyuzha's meetings in Belgrade with Serbia's prime minister and ministers of defense and interior affairs.

"It is in Serbia's interest to develop good relations with CSTO, as it is in her interest to develop good relations also with NATO, but at the same time do nothing to undermine her military neutrality," the statement quoted the president as saying.

According to the same source, Nikolai Bordyuzha thanked Nikolic for his invitation to visit Serbia - and stressed that he now "understands much more precisely" the challenges that Serbia is facing, which in turned made it clear in which areas CSTO can be of help.

Bordyuzha suggested to start improving exchange of information cooperation between security services, stressing that he thought this would be "interesting" for Serbian security structures.

CSTO can help Serbia significantly when it comes combating drug trade, organized crime, human trafficking, and international terrorism, as well as natural disasters, he added.

The CSTO respects Serbia's decision to remain militarily neutral and will never try to impose anything contrary to that upon Serbia, said Bordyuzha.