Dacic: Accession to ASEAN treaty good foundation for boosting Serbia's position

JAKARTA - Serbian FM Ivica Dacic said on Monday in Jakarta Serbia's accession to ASEAN's Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia was a good foundation for strengthening Serbia's position in that part of the world.

Dacic is in Jakarta for the 43rd ASEAN summit.

Responding to questions from Serbian reporters, he said the accession to the treaty had no impact on Serbia's EU integration and was not contrary to that objective.

"We want to become an EU member state and accession to the treaty is not contrary to that. We are not an ASEAN member state but we are acceding to the treaty like much larger countries have done," Dacic said.

He said Serbia's priorities included accession to various regional initiatives and that the ASEAN treaty was one of them.

He noted that Serbia had first expressed interest in joining the initiative in 2009 but that now was the first time ASEAN member states had a consensus on its accession to the treaty.

He said six out of ten ASEAN member states did not recognise the unilaterally declared independence of the so-called Kosovo but that recognitions by the remaining four countries might have been a result of Serbia's insufficient presence in the ASEAN region.

He noted that ASEAN member states had a population totalling around 600 mln and a collective GDP worth thousands of billions of dollars.

He said Serbia's bilateral trade with the countries totalled 700 mln dollars a year and was expected to exceed 1 bln dollars this and next year.

He also said the majority of ASEAN member states held a position on Ukraine that was similar to Serbia's in that they had condemned the violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine but had not imposed sanctions on Russia.