Vucic: I have had many meetings in New York with nearly all European leaders

NEW YORK - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday evening he had had many meetings in New York with nearly all European leaders over the past two days, including with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Council President Charles Michel.

Speaking to reporters in New York, Vucic said he had also met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and that he would have an extremely important meeting with Chinese Vice President Han Zheng.

There will be other important bilateral meetings as well, he said.

"There will be meetings with (EU special envoy for the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue) Miroslav Lajcak and everyone we must talk to about the situation in Kosovo-Metohija," Vucic said.

Asked about one of the news reports of the day, that Serbia had not agreed to a one-year extension of the sanctions on Russia, and for how long he thought the US and the EU would tolerate Serbia's refusal to impose the sanctions, Vucic responded that European officials would once again lecture him and preach to him about the sanctions at a meeting with EU foreign policy and security chief Josep Borrell later in the evening.

"I will listen to them carefully and I will tell them: 'It is nice of you to have given me a lecture but I am leading Serbia as president.' As long as that is so and as long as we think we can take being preached to about that, we will be pursuing this policy," he said.

"Once I realise that we no longer can, we no longer will," he added.

"But, as you can see, for a year and seven months now, we have been able to pursue such a policy of seriousness and responsibility. It is an honest, responsible and fair policy because we know how we have fared with sanctions, so why would we be involved in such things?" Vucic said.