Starović: Strong ties between Serbia and African countries

In a guest appearance on Happy Television, Starović said that the day before Minister Selaković, in his capacity as a special envoy of the President of Serbia, attended the inauguration of the President of Angola, an important event that gathered a large number of statesmen, primarily from the African continent.

In addition to attending the inauguration, Starović stated that it was an opportunity for Minister Selaković to meet with the presidents of Namibia, Zimbabwe and Guinea-Bissau, as well as with a number of prime ministers, deputy prime ministers and ministers of foreign affairs.

„Many people are saying that Africa is the continent of the future when talking about the growth rates. We believe that Africa is not only the continent of the future, but also the continent of the present,“ said Starović and menitoned Minister Selaković's two major African tours during the last year.

According to him, Serbia has got as many as 14 embassies on the African continent in its diplomatic network and will continue expanding that network, while all other former SFRY countries have a total of four embassies.

Starović emphasised the strong ties between Serbia and the countries of the African continent, and that the majority of those countries have not violated the territorial integrity of Serbia and did not recognise the unilaterally declared independence of Kosovo.

„It is something that we cannot take for granted, friendships must be nurtured, visits must be exchanged, and as an upgrade to all this, economic cooperation that increases year by year will follow,“ said Starović.

The State Secretary at the MFA stated that the Ministry was constantly working on the derecognition campaign that started at the end of 2017, when Suriname decided to withdraw the earlier decision to recognise the unilaterally declared independence of Kosovo and Metohija.

„After Suriname, in the next three years we had a total of 18 countries that withdrew their recognition of the unilaterally declared independence of Kosovo and Metohija, ending at the beginning of September 2020, after entering into force of the so-called moratorium in accordance with the Washington Agreement, under which we undertook to temporarily suspend that campaign and Priština administration undertook to suspend its campaign for admission to various international organisations. The moratorium has expired, we were willing to extend it, but there was no goodwill in Priština for such idea,“ said Starović.

This spring the temporary Priština institutions decided to finally break the moratorium by submission of application for membership in the Council of Europe, and from that moment onwards the moratorium was no longer in effect, he stated.

„We are continuing the derecognition campaign and in this short period of time, in just a few months we managed to obtain seven more derecognitions, in addition to the 18 previous recognitions,“ said Starović.

As he pointed out, more than 100 countries out of a total of 193 UN member states fully respect the territorial integrity of Serbia, and less than 90 countries have recognised the unanimously declared independence of Kosovo.

Starović said that Serbia had to do a lot to strengthen the positions of the five EU member states that have not recognised the unilaterally declared independence of Kosovo.
According to him, even Priština is aware that they cannot gain full membership in the UN, and that is why they are focused on the membership in NATO and the EU.

„As long as we have these five EU member countries, four of which are NATO members, which do not recognise the unilaterally declared independence of Kosovo and Metohija, that goal will certainly elude them,“ said Starović.