Vučić spoke from Astana: I am honored; I hope I will be able to reciprocate such an honor VIDEO

He said that he had excellent talks with the President of Kazakhstan, which will serve as the foundation for further cooperation, but that he is especially grateful for the great honor bestowed upon him through the awarding of the highest order.

“I was particularly honored to receive Kazakhstan’s highest order, and I hope I will have the opportunity to reciprocate this honor,” Vučić said.

“This is the highest order that Kazakhstan awards, and I am truly proud,” Vučić added, emphasizing that while he is the recipient, the order essentially belongs to Serbia because of its cooperation with Kazakhstan.

The Serbian President also said that he discussed education issues with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Kazakh Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov, noting that Serbia will find it difficult to reach Kazakhstan’s level of cooperation with foreign universities.

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Responding to a journalist’s question about whether any joint projects between Serbia and Kazakhstan are planned in terms of university cooperation, Vučić said that he had a long discussion about this with Tokayev last night and today with Bektenov.

“It is difficult to reach their model. They make a decision; this is a serious country that implements its decisions, and they have created three different models of cooperation with foreign universities. They gain enormous benefits from this in retaining their people in the country, in their training, in learning, in acquiring knowledge, while at the same time under the agreements they sign, they must return to the country and offer their knowledge to their own nation, not to another,” Vučić said.

Noting that Kazakhstan has achieved and created a lot in this regard, Vučić said that some of these things are possible for Serbia, while others are not.

“In our country, when you tell children not to go to school, someone else is blamed for poor education, lower knowledge, or the failure of the school system. We will fight and see what we can utilize and what we can do that would be of great importance to us. I believe there will be progress, and this is a particularly important field for cooperation, where we have agreed with the Kazakh government that they will provide their proposals, we will provide ours, and then we will see how to proceed,” Vučić said.

Regarding artificial intelligence, Vučić said that he discussed with his counterparts in Astana everything from satellites to the defense industry.

Vučić is currently on a two-day visit to Kazakhstan, where the country’s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, awarded him the Order of the Golden Eagle at a ceremony held at the Akorda Presidential Palace in Astana.

Following the ceremony, the Serbian and Kazakh delegations exchanged ten signed bilateral documents on cooperation between the two countries. Vučić and Tokayev attended the event and addressed those present.