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Moscow invites Serbia’s top diplomat to pay official visit, says Foreign Minister Lavrov

Earlier, it was reported that Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Montenegro had refused to provide an air corridor for Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov's aircraft, which was on its route to Belgrade

MOSCOW, June 6. /TASS/. Russia’s top diplomat Sergey Lavrov said on Monday that Moscow had invited Serbian Foreign Minister Nikola Selakovic to pay an official visit to Russia in the immediate future and expressed hope that the European Union would not hinder this visit.

"We have invited Nikola Selakovic, the foreign minister of Serbia, to pay an official visit to Russia in the immediate future," Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov told an on-line news conference.

"I hope that his flight, whether a regular or a special one, would not be subjected to a disgraceful punishment on behalf of Brussels, which along with its clients practically lost the sense of the norms of decency," Lavrov added.

The Russian foreign minister said that his disrupted visit to Serbia "envisaged a number of very useful and well-timed meetings" with Selkovic, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia Ivica Dacic.

Both sides planned to focus on today’s broad agenda of issues and to discuss "the rapidly developing strategic partnership" both on the level of the Russian-Serbian as well as international relations, according to the Russian foreign minister.

Earlier, the Serbian newspaper Vecerne Novosti reported that Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Montenegro had refused to provide an air corridor for Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov's aircraft, which was on its route to Belgrade.

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed later that the plane had been denied to enter the airspace of the countries neighboring on Serbia.

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