Serbia still does not join the West for Ukraine and does not participate in the Crimea Platform

Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic has denied claims that Serbia has joined the Crimea Platform, an international diplomatic initiative launched by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to defend his country.

“Serbia did not join the Crimea Platform, but the Prime Minister (Ana Brnabić) participated in this meeting via video call. However, she did not express her support, nor did we accept the text of the Crimea Platform document,” Dacic told Pink Television.

The Crimea Platform was a diplomatic summit initiated by Volodymyr Zelenskyy in August 2021 and attended by delegations from 46 countries, all Western countries, including G7 members. It is supposed to be an international coordination mechanism for the return of Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014. The protection of the human rights of Crimean Tatars, environmental degradation and the suppression of trade in the Black Sea and Azov regions are also issues that were discussed at the summit .

Instead of being present, the head of Serbian diplomacy met with Russian Ambassador Aleksandr Botsan-Kharchenko to receive congratulations for not being part of the Western countries on the Crimean platform.

Dacic said that Serbia’s stance on this platform was met with positive comments in Russia.

“He (the ambassador) gave me a letter from Reshetnikov, my Russian counterpart. We are co-chairs of the Joint Committee on Cooperation. The letter was mainly about economic and other issues and the organization of meetings. “I suggested that they set the dates for the official visits, that is, for the talks between the co-presidents, other ministers and, of course, the possibility of a meeting with the Foreign Minister of Russia, Sergey Lavrov,” Dacic added.

NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana expressed the organization’s unwavering support for Ukraine at the third summit of the International Crimea Platform on August 23, 2023.

The Deputy Secretary General highlighted the Alliance’s ongoing efforts and stressed the importance of continued military support to Ukraine. He pointed to recent decisions by member countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark to supply Ukraine with F-16 fighter aircraft./The Geopost/