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Serbia’s future is with EU and NATO - Rasmussen

In his view, Belgrade’s stronger ties with the European Union and NATO should be the main strategic goal for Serbia

Photo ITAR-TASS

Photo ITAR-TASS

BELGRADE, July 6 (Itar-Tass) - NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in an interview with the Beta news agency in Brussels on Friday that Serbia’s future was with the European Union and NATO.

In his view, Belgrade’s stronger ties with the European Union and NATO should be the main strategic goal for Serbia.

Rasmussen said that he understood the negative attitude which many Serbians had to the alliance, which had bombarded that Balkan state for 78 days in 1999. He added that a lot had changed since then and that all peoples in the region now considered NATO to be an unbiased guarantor of peace and stability.

"That is why I am sure that Serbia’s future is closely linked with the Euro-Atlantic perspective,” Rasmussen emphasized.

Rasmussen’s remarks have outraged some Serbian politicians. The Democratic Party of Serbia led by Vojislav Kostunica has described them as mean. “Rasmussen knows very well that Serbia proclaimed military neutrality in 2007. Nevertheless, he is trying to drag our country into NATO,” Kostunica’s party said in a statement released in Belgrade on Friday.

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