WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Serbia has no intentions to join NATO in the near future, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said in a speech at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC on Thursday.
“We have no aspirations to join NATO so far, and I don’t know what will happen in the future,” Vucic stated.
The people of Serbia “need to be very cautious” on the issue of NATO membership “because of our past, because of 1999,” Vucic said of NATO’s bombing campaign in Serbia as well as Montenegro.
“You need time, we need time,” he added.
Serbia is currently seeking accession to the European Union, but has taken a firm stance against joining NATO. In January 2015, Serbia deepened cooperation with NATO through an Individual Partnership Action Plan.
On Thursday, NATO’s Ambassador Thrasyvoulos Terry Stamatopoulos visited Serbia at the invitation of the Serbian Ministry of Defense.
