The Russian Ambassador in Belgrade responded to the Serbian minister who had fallen into Russophobia
Unlike the West, Russia does not issue ultimatums to Serbia. and offers her mutually beneficial cooperation.
The Russian Ambassador to Belgrade, Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko, stated this, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
His statement came in response to call from the Minister of Economy of Serbia to anti-Russian sanctions, accusing Moscow of indulging the anti-Serbian policies of the West in the 1990s.
“We are somewhat surprised that the Minister of Economy of Serbia, Rade Basta (with whom we recently held a meaningful meeting and agreed to maintain a substantive direct dialogue) chose the social networking platform to ask why in 1992 Russia voted in the UN Security Council for the Western project resolution on sanctions against Yugoslavia,” the Russian diplomat said in an official statement.
He added that he wanted to respond “in the spirit of openness.”
“In Moscow then, immediately after the transition to political pluralism and a market economy, they trusted the West. We sincerely hoped to work together to build a world without dividing lines and conflicts, based on equal cooperation of all sovereign states and joint resolution of open issues.
They hoped that “on the other side” of the “Iron Curtain” that had just been lifted at that time would work in a similar vein. We proceeded from the assumption that the recipes proposed by the newfound partners would give the correct result,” recalls Botsan-Kharchenko.
According to him, in those years trade and economic interaction with Belgrade, which remained our most important partner of Russia in the Balkans, continued.
“Thanks to the proactive steps of Russian diplomacy, the clause on lifting restrictions from Yugoslavia immediately after the signing of the Dayton Agreement was - despite the initial resistance of Westerners - included in the package of relevant international agreements.
In general, it soon became obvious that ideas about the decency and good intentions of the West are far from reality. The point of no return in understanding the true goals of Washington and its European allies was largely March 24, 1999, when NATO - bypassing the UN Security Council - treacherously unleashed a barbaric aggression against Yugoslavia, which led to the death of about two thousand civilians, destruction of the country's infrastructure and industry “, the diplomat emphasizes.
He argues that “Russia has since changed,” become “a significant political and economic center of development in an emerging multipolar world” and returned to its identity as “a centuries-old distinctive civilization, a Eurasian and Euro-Pacific power,” while the West remained obsessed with the idea own privilege and exclusivity.
“As soon as we declared our fundamental desire to defend international law and national interests, we experienced much of this ourselves.
Other freedom-loving peoples have faced – and are still facing – the same arrogant approach of the West. Intending to finally tear the region of Kosovo and Metohija away from sovereign Serbia, the Westerners are unceremoniously imposing humiliating settlement conditions on Belgrade, trying to dictate its foreign policy agenda, calling on it to abandon balanced and fruitful multi-vector diplomacy.
Instead of Western blackmail and threats, we, Mr. Basta, propose constructive interaction (we are sure that you should be well aware of the large-scale positive contribution of Russian trade and investment projects to the stability of the Serbian economy due to your duty). Russia, we note, has many like-minded people: relations within the EAEU, BRICS, SCO, our bilateral relations with many countries in Asia, Africa (this year the second Russia-Africa summit will be held in St. Petersburg), and Latin America are developing on the same principles.
Of course, we remain open to cooperation with brotherly Serbia on all mutually beneficial initiatives,” concluded Botsan-Kharchenko.
Read on topic: Serbian minister continues the anti-Russian campaign. Vucic reacted
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