Vucic: Big powers using peace, international law in their favour

NEW YORK - Addressing the UN Summit of the Future in New York, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said the amount of "lies and hypocrisy" with which big powers were using peace and international law in their favour was incredible.

It is very important to have peace and not conflicts, Vucic said at the two-day summit, held as part of the 79th UN General Assembly session.

"I do not want to repeat the empty stories about observance of international law norms, because international public law applies only to the strong, and not to the small," he said.

"All the stakeholders, with no exception, will refer to those norms of international law in their favour. And they intentionally forget all that they have been doing and that they are doing today," Vucic noted.

Serbia supports the plan of the UN secretary general, he said.

The Republic of Serbia supports the Pact for the Future in spite of the fact that we "would like to see more compromise," he said.

"Serbia is on its European path. Unlike many others, Serbia observes the norms and regulations of international public law. At the same time, Serbia is a modern country, with a big growth rate, but also not ready to sacrifice its own traditional values, and it will be capable of resisting all the attempts from the outside that the so-called woke movement is imposing on it as the highest possible value and the state of society that we must allegedly reach in the future," he also said.

He said sustainable development, financial development, international peace and security, science, technology, and digital cooperation, youth and future generations and transforming global governance were all important topics for Serbia.

"Serbia supports the demand of the group of 77 developing countries joined also by the People's Republic of China, and we believe that financing for the problem of climate change should be a separate issue, and not a part of financing for development.

We believe that the US and the EU will have more understanding for reforms of the existing financing architecture. Additionally, we believe that the remarks of Brazil and Russia, where the issues of climate and climate change are more related to security than to development, are serious and that they deserve attention," he said.

"Additionally, Serbia believes that it is very important to find a balance between the Western point of view and the issue of the rule of law on one side and the demand of the numerous countries when it comes to family and traditional values.

Because human rights are one thing and their abuse and overemphasising leads towards the destruction of traditional conservative societies, which many countries worldwide cannot accept, particularly when it comes to family values. Precisely those values are cherished and nurtured by the Republic of Serbia," Vucic concluded.