The Serbian president has ordered a meeting of the National Security Council to be scheduled for this Saturday.
The arrest warrant for the Russian president could be a step towards the biggest conflict in world history, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Friday.
“I fear we are headed in the direction of perhaps the greatest conflict in the history of the world. I wonder if anyone has the brains to put an end to this madness. Does anyone understand the consequences we face?”, commented the president about the news during his trip to the city of Sid.
The Serbian leader asked his chief of staff to order Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic to schedule a meeting of the National Security Council for this Saturday.
However, the president will not be present at the session because he will travel to Ohrid (North Macedonia) where he will meet with the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, and international mediators in the framework of the dialogue on the normalization of relations with the self-proclaimed republic. .
Despite strong pressure from the European Union, Belgrade retains its old ties with Moscow and refuses to join the sanctions imposed on Russia by the military operation in Ukraine.
The International Criminal Court issued this Friday an arrest warrant against Putin, citing his responsibility for alleged crimes committed in Ukraine. The court located in The Hague mentions the alleged deportation of minors Ukrainians into Russian territory, which he qualifies as a war crime and points out that there are sufficient grounds to believe in the direct responsibility of the Russian president.
In this regard, the spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zajárova, remembered that the decisions of the ICC “have no no importance” for the country, “not even in legal terms”. The spokeswoman specified that “Russia not part of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and has no obligation under it”, nor does it cooperate with this body.
“We consider the very formulation of the case to be scandalous and unacceptable. Russia, like a number of countries, does not recognize the jurisdiction of this court, and for Moscow any such decision from a legal point of view is insignificant,” reacted for his part Dmitri Peskov, spokesman for the Kremlin.
The ICC was established in 2002 to investigate serious violations of the Geneva Conventions and bring to justice those responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
The founding document, the 1998 Rome Statute, has been ratified by 123 countries, which do not include the United States, Russia, China, Israelamong others.
