President "not instructed by anyone - not even by Putin"

President "not instructed by anyone - not even by Putin"

The president said that he was not being instructed by anyone, including Russia, and that he was "not discussing with any representative of any country or organization in the world what Serbia should do."

Nikolic believes that during his three and a half years in office to date, none of his moves had "halted" the work of the government, and added the cabinet had his "full support."

"I'm not the opposition to the government, I want to succeed with this government. If this is not possible, I would not want it to turn out it's impossible because I'm preventing the government. Secondly, I cannot prevent it at all. There is no mechanism by which the president can prevent the government from making or executing its decisions," he said.

Nikolic added he had done much thus far, "spoke with many presidents, and thanks to that Serbia today has no enemies in the world."

"We have friends who are more or less such. Since I am being attacked, let them say explicitly what it is that I did not do right," he said.

Asked whether Russian President Vladimir Putin "intervened on the issue of blocking Serbia's EU integration," Nikolic said that "never happened - it was the other way round."

"It always so happened that I would be calling Russia to plead, while Russia never called to command, (or) God forbid, to plead for anything. What would Russia plead with Serbia for. Perhaps, someone at some point was in the habit of calling someone in Serbia to issue their orders. Vladimir Putin is not in the habit of doing this," explained Nikolic.

The president added that he had been discussing "Serbia's European path" with Putin - but that he "never heard from any representative of Russia that Serbia should not join the European Union."

When asked "why he thinks it would not be good for Russia to have a true friend, (Serbia) in the EU," Nikolic said that officials in Russia are "aware that they would lose a friend, because Serbia would, in that situation, have to fit into a common foreign policy."

"It's not a game. Our government knows there is a common EU foreign policy into which, I hope, we can fail to fit, by using those precedents that are already occurring in the EU," he said.