Vucic: Serbia is no one's proxy

RUDNO - To everyone watching what Serbia is doing, it is clear the country is no one's proxy - American, Russian or anyone else's, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said in Rudno, southwestern Serbia, on Wednesday.

Vucic was responding to a claim by former US and NATO general Wesley Clarke that Serbia was a Russian proxy in the Balkans and that Vucic wanted to create a Greater Serbia.

"My message to Mr Clark is: to everyone watching what Serbia is doing, it is clear that we are no one's proxy. But just like we are not a Russian proxy, we are not an American proxy either, and we will never be that, or anyone else's proxy. A freedom-loving nation lives here that has always respected and valued its freedom above anything else and died for it because it knew there is nothing that is more important than freedom," Vucic told reporters when asked to comment on Clark's statement.

"It would be good if he had learned that lesson in 1999... Serbia will serve no one, no big power. Serbia will serve only its own people," Vucic said.

He noted that Clark had left an "indelible mark" in the Balkans by killing Serbs and Serbian children in the 1999 NATO aggression.

"I am glad they take pleasure in attacking Serbia - that means we have grown stronger and more powerful. And that they have to use untruths while doing so, as that is further evidence they are quite powerless in their hatred and ill-treatment of our country," Vucic said.

When asked to comment on a statement by US President Joe Biden that the 1999 NATO bombing had been aimed at preventing an ethnic cleansing of Albanians in Kosovo-Metohija, Vucic responded the statement reflected the official interpretation by all Western powers who had taken part in the aggression on the then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

"How come that, when Russia invades Ukraine, Western powers call that an aggression, but when they invade Serbia's territory, then it is not an aggression to them, but an attempt to save someone?" he asked.

"We need good relations with everyone. We will build them with both the Americans and the Russians. Except that I would like to ask them to learn a small lesson about the Serbs and Serbia: that we love freedom more than anything and that we do not want to be subservient and ingratiate ourselves with anyone," Vucic added.