MOSCOW, November 20 /TASS/. Russia hopes that Serbia will remember the friendly nature of relations with Russia when it makes a decision whether it should join the EU sanctions against Russia, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Alexander Lukashevich told a briefing on Thursday.

“Russia considers sanctions to be absolutely illegitimate and unfriendly. The method our European colleagues are using to persuade and force other countries to join a campaign of sanctions pressure on Russia is unacceptable. This method can hardly be called civilized, especially when it is being applied to countries, which seek to join the European Union,” Lukashevich said.

“We hope that our Serbian colleagues are going to weigh all the circumstances linked to restrictive pressure on Russia and will take account of the good, friendly and strategic nature of our relations with Serbia that was confirmed by the Russian president’s recent visit to Belgrade,” Lukashevich said.

Both Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic and Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said on Thursday that Serbia would not impose sanctions on Russia despite its goal to join the European Union.

Serbia is not planning to impose sanctions on Russia at the moment, Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic told journalists after meeting Johannes Hahn, the visiting EU Commissioner for Enlargement and Good-Neighbourly Relations.

Nikolic, however, admitted that the EU membership which Serbia was seeking implies an obligation to pursue a common foreign policy.

“What I heard from Hahn is the same what you have heard from him: Serbia is not an EU member and it can be independent in pursuing its foreign policy; but an EU membership would have implied a commitment to pursue a common foreign policy,” Nikolic told a news conference held jointly with Johannes Hahn.

“Today, in these hours and years, Serbia will definitely not impose sanctions on Russia,” Hahn emphasized.

Johannes Hahn said, in turn, that Serbia was free and that absolutely no pressure was being exerted on it to make its policy fully in line with the EU foreign policy. He added, however, that the European family was expecting Serbia to gradually bring its policy in line with the European one, including its foreign policy.

Earlier on Thursday, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said that Serbia was not going to impose sanctions on Russia.

“The European Union is our strategic goal but we are not going to impose sanctions against Russia,” Vucic told journalists after meeting Johannes Hahn, the EU Commissioner for Enlargement and Good-Neighbourly Relations, in Belgrade on Thursday.

“I am going to tell you what I keep saying to everybody wherever I go: Moscow, Washington, Brussels, Belgrade or Kosovska Mitrovica. Everything I have said about Serbia’s policy, our path to the EU and our attitude to Russia I have also said to /Russian President/ Vladimir Putin and Mr. Hahn,” Vucic stressed adding that Serbia was pursuing a policy in the interests of its citizens.