BELGRADE, August 28. /TASS/. Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said on Monday that he plans to visit Russia before the end of this year and meet with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov.

"We will not discuss anything except our bilateral relations and what concerns the Joint Committee (the intergovernmental Russian-Serbian committee on trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation - TASS). Of course, I will meet with my colleague Sergey Lavrov," he said in an interview with the Happy TV channel. "If [Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter] Szijjarto can visit Moscow, why can’t we do the same?"

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has repeatedly said that Moscow "is always open for communication with its Serbian friends," although it understands that they are "very busy."

Lavrov planned to visit Belgrade on June 6-7, 2022, but the visit did not take place because Bulgaria, North Macedonia, and Montenegro refused to allow Lavrov’s plane to fly over their territories. Lavrov slammed this move as unprecedented and unthinkable.

Failing to visit Belgrade, the top Russian diplomat invited his then Serbian counterpart, Nikola Selakovic, to visit Moscow. But when a new government was formed in Belgrade, Dacic, who is known for being a Russia sympathizer, was appointed foreign minister. It was due to Dacic's pro-Russian campaign rhetoric that the coalition led by his Socialist Party of Serbia was able to come third in the Serbian parliamentary elections, carrying 11.48% of the vote.