Dacic confers with the Foreign Minister of San Marino

18. Jul 2023.
First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dacic received today the State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, International Economic Cooperation and Telecommunications of the Republic of San Marino, Luca Beccari, who paid a two-day official visit to the Republic of Serbia on 17-18 July 2023.

In the talks, they discussed opportunities for the further promotion of political and economic relations, cooperation between the two countries at the multilateral level and within regional initiatives, as well as the process of European integration. Minister Dacic informed State Secretary Beccari about the situation in Kosovo and Metohija in light of the recent escalation caused by the regime in Pristina. He expressed the expectation that our partners, both from the EU and from the region, would exert influence on the PISG in Pristina with the aim of de-escalation, and enabling the Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija to return to normal and safe lives, while Belgrade, for its part, was doing everything to ensure that de-escalation takes place in the shortest possible time.   

"We want to have the closest possible relations with San Marino. Our bilateral relations are very advanced, but there is still a lot of room for further cooperation. Our cooperation is underdeveloped, even though we are near and, therefore, all the conditions are in place for us to develop cooperation in many segments of the society based on our common, mutual interests", said Minister Dacic at the press conference after the meeting, pointing out that this year the two countries were marking 20 years since the formal establishment of diplomatic relations, although it was agreed to look for evidence of much earlier contacts in the archives, dating back to the time of the former Yugoslavia and perhaps even the Kingdom of Serbia.

The Serbian Foreign Minister recalled that the Foreign Ministries of Serbia and San Marino had already signed a Memorandum on bilateral political consultations, which would be held in the coming period, and added that they also discussed the joint training of diplomatic personnel. Minister Dacic most heartily thanked his counterpart for the support of San Marino to Serbia's successful bid to host EXPO 2027, saying that Serbia would return the favour by ensuring the best possible conditions for a presentation of San Marino at the world exhibition and added that, in the coming weeks, consultations would begin on all the topics that we need to deal with as we approach this exhibition, from logistics to political talks with certain countries that want to be present and that we want to help in order to make their presence as significant as possible because those countries had supported us.

"Likewise, we support the participation of San Marino in the Adriatic and Ionian Initiative and in general in all other segments, wherever we can work together, we will be looking for opportunities for cooperation and joint interests", Dacic said, announcing that he had undertaken to be the first Serbian Foreign Minister to visit San Marino, in the hope that our countries would develop more active and dynamic relations.

State Secretary Beccari thanked Minister Dacic for the warm welcome during his first visit to Serbia, which he used to learn about the potentials for cooperation between our two countries, which, although different, shared some issues, such as European integration and global challenges.

"Relations between San Marino and Serbia could develop in terms of the economy, trade and culture. I believe that our economies can very easily identify various forms of development and that we can boost the trade in goods and foreign investments”, said the head of diplomacy of San Marino at the press conference, and added that he was glad that his country would participate in the EXPO specialized exhibition for the first time.

After the conference, praising the joint initiative of the Serbian Foreign Ministry and the Post of Serbia to mark the anniversaries of diplomatic relations by issuing commemorative postage stamp series as a good gesture of political attention that would remain forever in our archives, Minister Dacic invited the Acting Director of the Post of Serbia Zoran Djordjevic to present the guest from San Marino with the first postage stamp from the special edition issued on the occasion of this anniversary, 20 years of diplomatic relations, while the stamp with serial number two was presented to the head of Serbian diplomacy.