Country's international position "significantly improved"

Country's international position "significantly improved"

Addressing the conference "European Tragedy of 1914 and the Multipolar World of 2014: Lessons Learned," organized by the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development (CIRSD) over the weekend, Dačić noted that he was "not fully satisfied."

The reason for this, Tanjug reported, was "because the old prejudice and way of thinking still persist, implying that pressuring Serbia can lead to achieving some objectives that it will definitely not consent to."

Conferences such as this one, organized by the CIRSD, are of great significance, said Dačić, thanking everyone who accepted the invitation to attend and the organisation itself, headed by Vuk Jeremić.

"This is a current topic and will remain so over the next four years... not in terms of going back in the past, but learning the lessons of what happened as a new world order was being built," Dačić said, adding that World War I is one of the gravest historical events for Serbia, in which it lost almost half of its population.

Serbia "belongs in Europe and wants to be a full-fledged EU member, as well as to continue to develop its friendly relations with Russia and China and seek a new partnership with the United States, with which it sided in both world wars," Dačić said.

Our foreign policy is based on seeking common interests with developing countries, he said.

Dačić also said that the Non-Aligned Movement has 120 member states, of which only 47 have recognized Kosovo's unilaterally declared independence.

Gratitude

Ivica Dačić on Saturday thanked former Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos for his friendliness towards Serbia and assistance to the country in its bid to protect national and state interests while continuing on its European path, the Serbian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Moratinos is taking part in a conference on World War I, organized in Belgrade by the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development.

Dačić and Moratinos met to discuss current international developments, long-term projects of global significance under the auspices of the UN and ways for Serbia to best fulfil its potentials by participating in such projects, the statement said.

"They concluded that, in addition to pursuing its proclaimed political objectives of becoming an EU member state and fostering relations with Moscow, Washington and Beijing, Serbia - which is becoming increasingly established as a reliable partner - should also work on relations with developing countries such as India, as well as Brazil and other Latin American countries," the ministry said.