Vucic: Serbs to be proud of their country

BELGRADE - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday evening the Serbs would be proud of their country on Friday, the day after a UN General Assembly vote on a Srebrenica resolution.

"We will be disappointed in some countries and celebrate some others, but we will travel around the world with our heads held up high because the whole world knows Serbia is a free and freedom-loving state that is not being run by anyone else," Vucic told the RTS.

"It will be known that Serbia has opposed the arrogant, the big and powerful - not because it needs something or because it is guilty of something, but because it protected its freedom and its face," he added.

He said he firmly believed China would vote against the resolution and that "everything will be different" for Serbia in that case.

"I believe they will vote against and I rely on that, just like they can always hear what we think about Taiwan - and we think that only the People's Republic of China exists and that it is an affair of the People's Republic of China, so it is up to the People's Republic of China and President Xi to resolve their internal affairs when they want to and the way they want to," Vucic said.

He said the proposed Srebnreica resolution had opened a Pandora's box and that Serbia would cosponsor all future genocide resolutions as the truth about those who had committed genocide in the past "must be found out."

"A Pandora's box has been opened. I have just finished my discussions with (Russian Ambassador to the UN Vasily) Nebenzya. The Russians will raise the issue of genocide against the Soviet people. I have also heard the Belarusians have ideas of their own, but we will see if they (Russia and Belarus) will come out with one or two resolutions," Vucic said, reiterating that the truth about who had committed genocide, and when, must become known.

"We did not want to go back into the past, but they have taken us back 29 years into the past, so we will now take some countries back 70-80 years into the past," he said.

Asked if the proposers of the resolution understood its potential consequences, Vucic responded that they did and that Serbia had warned of fresh tensions in the region.

"Everyone understands everything - those from America, Canada and the EU understand everything," Vucic noted.