Dacic: We are disappointed with silencing of truth about 1999 NATO aggression

NEW YORK - Serbian FM Ivica Dacic said in New York on Monday Serbia was disappointed that the truth about the 1999 NATO aggression on the then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) had been silenced in the UN Security Council.

"We came here at the invitation of the UNSC. We believe this topic is extremely important for the international legal order and that, just like the bombing of Serbia was carried out as a precedent, a precedent occurred in the procedural vote today," Dacic told a press conference at the UNSC headquarters.

He thanked Russia, China and Algeria for voting for a motion to debate the bombing of the FRY in the UNSC.

Twelve UNSC members - France, the UK, the US, Ecuador, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, South Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia and Switzerland - abstained and there were no votes against.

Dacic also thanked the countries that did not vote in favour of the motion and added that many of them had abstained because they had not wanted to discuss a topic "where, obviously, there are double standards."

As a result of the vote, a Russia-proposed debate on the 25th anniversary of the 1999 NATO bombing of the FRY was not put on the agenda of the UNSC.

Commenting on purported humanitarian grounds used as a pretext for the bombing, Dacic said:

"What humanitarian grounds?" and added that an "almost complete ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Kosovo-Metohija" had been carried out at the time.

"Is a humanitarian intervention against Pristina needed now when crimes are being committed against the Serbs, after 14 per cent of Serbs had been expelled in the past several months and when Pristina does not want to form a Community of Serb Municipalities, but is instead rewarded with membership in various international organisations?" Dacic also said.