Serbia’s Vucic hits back at NATO member over Balkan summit cancellation

Belgrade previously accused Croatia of planning a military attack

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has hit back at his Croatian counterpart, Zoran Milanovic, who canceled an upcoming regional summit and accused Belgrade of hostile rhetoric.

On Monday, Milanovic announced that he was canceling this year’s Brdo-Brijuni meeting, an annual summit of Balkan countries, which was to take place in Croatia next month. In a statement on his website, Milanovic argued that “the political statements and actions” of Vucic “disrupt interstate relations, and threaten peace and stability in the Southeast European region.” He added that Vucic’s visit to Croatia was “not possible.”

Speaking to the Tanjug news agency later that day, the Serbian leader responded, saying: “He is absolutely right, I don’t belong there.”

“As for the statements and what Zoran Milanovic is referring to, I am not his lackey,” Vucic said. “Croatia should not feel any danger from Serbia, but they won’t silence us and won’t dictate what we can say.”

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Vucic earlier described the 2025 defense cooperation agreement between Croatia, Albania, and Serbia’s breakaway Kosovo region as “a military alliance aimed at attacking Serbia at some point in the future.” He argued this month that Serbia’s neighbors were “waiting for a favorable moment when there would be general chaos in the world.”

Milanovic dismissed Vucic’s claims at the time as “silly,” and denied that cooperation between Croatia, a NATO member, and Albania and Kosovo could be considered a military alliance.

In 1999, NATO carried out a bombing campaign in Serbia in support of ethnic Albanian insurgents in Kosovo. In 2008, the Albanian-led authorities in Kosovo declared independence from Belgrade, which has been recognized by most Western states, but not by countries such as Russia and China.

Serbia’s relations with the Western-backed government in Kosovo remain tense and have led to occasional military standoffs, as Belgrade has accused the Albanian-led authorities of persecuting ethnic Serbs.