Vučić on NIS: "We'll do everything on our end to resolve the issue"

Asked by reporters whether he expects the licenses for NIS to continue operating and for MOL to continue negotiations over the takeover of Russian ownership in NIS to be extended beyond July 31, and how he views Srbijagas Director General Dušan Bajatović’s optimistic statement that he expects another extension, Vučić said he was not certain that would happen.

"I don't know what to tell you. I really don't know what to tell you. I would ask you how he (Bajatović) knows that. And you tell me — what does that have to do with Bajatović, and how does he know that? I'm not sure.

I'm not sure anyone knows that. I have some sense of what might happen, but that has nothing to do with whether you can be optimistic or pessimistic. That is why I have not been enthusiastic and why I have not been overly optimistic all this time, because I knew it would be very difficult to achieve," Vučić said, adding that the difficulties were least related to Serbia and its actions.

He emphasized that he was not optimistic but that he still had hope.

"And whether we will do everything we can to make it happen — absolutely," Vučić told reporters while visiting construction works on the bridge over the Velika Morava River near Svilajnac and Velika Plana.