Vucic: First discussions with OFAC on NIS sanctions due Monday

BELGRADE - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Sunday evening the first technical-level discussions with the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Department of the Treasury about US sanctions on Serbia's majority Russian-owned oil company NIS were scheduled for as early as Monday.

Everything will be defined within the next seven days, after which we will speak with Russia, Vucic said on Pink TV.

Asked to comment on a statement by US official James O'Brien that there would be no risk to Serbia if there was no Russian ownership in the company, Vucic said it meant "take everything away from the Russians, and there is no risk to you."

"First we want to see if we have to or not. We will speak with people from the Trump administration, and then we will see if we can pay a fair price after that, because we do not want to take anyone's property away," Vucic said.

"The moment when many European countries said 'let's take tens and hundreds of billions of euros away from the Russians' signalled the end of international law," he said.

"Where does that lead to? That leads to complete madness and to a complete lack of certainty in the world. Serbia is not that kind of country, this is a country of full legal certainty, that is why we are champions when it comes to attracting FDI. What kind of signal would we send if we said: 'We will now take NIS away, because we can,'" he said.

"We will take nothing away, we will pay a fair price if we have to, and that is it," Vucic said.