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Merkel’s remarks on Minsk Accords cast events in Ukraine in new light — Serbian President

We all witnessed the historically important statement by Angela Merkel, I am surprised, Aleksandar Vucic said

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic REUTERS/Zorana Jevtic

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic

© REUTERS/Zorana Jevtic

BELGRADE, December 11. /TASS/. Ex-German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s statement on the Minsk Agreements is historic and changes the attitude to what has been happening in Ukraine since 2014, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said in his address to the nation on Saturday.

"We all witnessed the historically important statement by Angela Merkel, I am surprised. <...> For me, this idea is practically unfathomable but it is confirmed by what [former Ukrainian President] Pyotr Poroshenko said that they’d never intended to implement the Minsk Accords, this casts the situation in an absolutely new light. This does not change the fact who attacked whom but it does change the approach to what has been going on [in Ukraine] since 2014," the Serbian leader said adding that this seriously affects Serbia’s stance on Kosovo.

"This tells you about Serbia’s position and [Western] evil intentions. This statement by Merkel cardinally changes the situation in all senses, above all, in the political one, and for me it is a clear signal whom not to trust," Vucic stressed.

In an interview with the Zeit newspaper published on December 7, Merkel said that the Minsk Agreements were "an attempt to give time to Ukraine. It also used this time to become stronger as can be seen today. The Ukraine of 2014-2015 is not the modern Ukraine." According to the politician, "it was clear to everyone" that the conflict had stalled and the problem had not been resolved "yet this was precisely what gave Ukraine invaluable time." She expressed doubt that at that time NATO states would have been able to support Kiev to the extent that they do now.

On December 9, Russian Ambassador to Belgrade Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko said that the West was using the Brussels agreements on Kosovo to stall for time, like it did with the Minsk agreements, and it cares little about their implementation.

In accordance with the Brussels agreements on the normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina of April 19, 2013, the Community of Serb Municipalities, a self-governing body of Serbs living in the unrecognized republic, is to be established in Kosovo. Vucic has repeatedly stated that his country has fulfilled its part of the Brussels agreements, while the Kosovars only started to work out the charter for the Community of Serb Municipalities and then suspended the process.

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