Vucic: Serbia is not going to join NATO
Serbia is not going to join the North Atlantic Alliance, said Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić on March 24, speaking at the ceremony commemorating the victims of the NATO attack on Yugoslavia in 1999.
“The Serbian people do not wish to join the North Atlantic Alliance. Military neutrality is a natural choice by the Serbian state,” he said, stressing that the Serbian people do not want NATO membership.
Serbian protestors have been demanding the resignation of President Vučić, fair elections and free media for months. The protests started after an opposition politician was beaten in November.
According to a parliamentary resolution from 2007, Serbia adheres to neutrality with respect to military alliances; however, on February 12, 2016, the country's parliament ratified a document on diplomatic immunity for NATO representatives and logistics support on the territory of the Republic.
The Individual Partnership Action Plan between Serbia and NATO (IPAP) came into force in March 2015; the document defines educational and technical cooperation, joint exercises and the creation of a positive image of the Alliance within Serbian society. At the same time, in 2013, the Serbian Parliament received observer status in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
CSTO is an intergovernmental military alliance that was signed on 15 May 1992 by six post-Soviet states: Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.