Vucic: At our request, Tirana declaration makes no mention of sanctions on Russia

TIRANA - After attending a plenary meeting at a Ukraine-Southeast Europe summit in Tirana, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Wednesday that, at Serbia's request, a declaration to be adopted at the summit made no mention of sanctions against Russia or of its "malignant" influence.

"We had a discussion involving (Turkish President Recep Tayyip) Erdogan and (Greek PM Kyriakos) Mitsotakis in a video format, as well as (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelenskyy, the president of Moldova, (Croatian PM Andrej) Plenkovic and us from the Western Balkans five-plus-one. We also talked about this all day yesterday and this morning - discussions about that declaration, drawn up by Ukrainians and Europeans, were underway until a minute ago," Vucic told reporters.

He said Serbia's request that sections about sanctions on Russia and its "malignant" influence in the region be eliminated from the document had been granted.

"Because I said: 'If that is how the majority of you see this, let's also include others whom we see as having a malignant influence,' and then they got that out," Vucic said.

Barring any developments to the contrary, it should stay that way, Vucic said.

"We have been informed it (the text of the declaration) has been accepted. It is now a declaration with a million usual things about the Russian attack on Ukraine, but there are no sanctions or a mention of sanctions, which is important to us, and there is no mention of a malignant influence by Russia, if I am not mistaken," Vucic said.