Serbian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivan Mrkic met with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dimitriy Rogozin in St. Petersburg. They discussed bilateral relations between Russia and Serbia and agreed that the relations between the two countries were better than ever before. Mrkic informed Rogozin, who was interested in the implementation of the Brussels Agreement, about the conduct of negotiations between the implementation teams of Belgrade and Pristina, about the difficulties of an objective nature and problems caused by other factors. Minister Mrkic said to the Russian Deputy PM that when it comes to the Brussels Agreement, Serbia continued the course in the direction of what it had agreed to and that it would, in no way, enter into a "creative" interpretation that the other side occasionally tended to impose.
The Serbian Foreign Minister thanked Russia for its principled position which, as he emphasized, significantly facilitated the preservation of Serbia's territorial integrity and sovereignty. Both Rogozin and Mrkic expressed their satisfaction with the Strategic Agreement between Russia and Serbia, recently signed by the two Presidents, Vladimir Putin and Tomislav Nikolic.
Rogozin and Mrkic also talked about the pace and dynamic of using the loan that Russia recently extended to Serbia. They concluded that there were no standstills and that everything was right on course as planned.
The Serbian Foreign Minister is attending the Conference "The Future of Nuclear Energy in the 21st Century", held in St. Petersburg, from 27 to 28 June, which has gathered together some 40 Ministers from Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia. The Conference is focused on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy in power generation. In his address to the Conference on the first day of deliberations, Minister Mrkic explained the position of Serbia which was fully aware that, even though there were some good sides to the exploitation of nuclear energy based on fusion, it should be controlled in line with the adopted regulations and standards existing at the international level and focused on its safe environmental impact, so as to avoid accidents like Chernobyl or Fukushima from re-occurring ever again. In his speech Minister Mrkic also stressed the need for the non-proliferation of nuclear material or strict controls on its distribution.