Vučić on NIS: I want to avoid nationalization at all costs, I will talk to the Americans, they produced this anyway

(Patria) - Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić stated at a Serbian Government session on NIS that Serbia will support the Russian side in negotiations with a third party regarding changes in ownership of the company, and that if they do not agree on the price, the state will be ready to offer the Russians more money to buy NIS. Vučić emphasized that he is against "nationalization, confiscation, and seizure" of property, but that he must have a solution within a week.

At the Government session, Vučić expressed hope that Asian and European partners, with whom the Russian partners are negotiating, will agree to negotiate ownership, which, as he said, would mean that all parties could address the American OFAC with a joint letter.

"We will accept and in that sense the Russian letter that the Russians, together with their partners, Asian and European, will send to OFAC. We will sign it as the country in which this is happening, and as co-owners," Vučić stated.

After that, as he explained, Serbia will wait for the Americans' decision on whether they will accept it or not, and whether they will allow oil supply or not.

"We are in complete collapse without oil supply by February 13, because our Refinery is not working, nothing else is working. I will talk to the Americans, I will beg them to help us on this issue, even though they produced this.

I will talk and beg them to help us on this issue," Vučić said.

"I want every citizen in this country, I want every person in the world to see that we do not want to take anything from anyone. It is not ours by majority, it is Russian by majority, they have the right to decide on it, but we have the right to live. And that is why I want to exhaust all possibilities to the extreme before initiating a process of taking over management, or this, or that, or anything that Bulgarians, Romanians, and all others have done: Bulgarians, Romanians, and all others," he said.

He also announced that today he will have talks with potential European and Asian partners with whom the Russian side is negotiating changes in ownership of NIS. If they do not agree on the price, Vučić reiterated, the state will offer a higher one, because it is ready to even overpay for NIS, but not to take anything from anyone.