Serbian Prime Minister Vucic may present Tony Blair’s new advisory role for Serbia as a public relation success, and that Blair “will do wonders”’ for the country’s ‘European path’, foreign affairs analyst Srdja Trifkovic told RT.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair will be an advisor to Serbia’s PM Aleksandr Vucic, who was on the opposite side in the Balkan conflict 16 years ago. According to Serbian officials the deal was paid for by the United Arab Emirates.
RT: The chief proponent of NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia could now advise a Prime Minister who was once himself an outspoken critic of Tony Blair, what do you make of this?
Srdja Trifkovic: We have a government here in Belgrade which is almost desperate to continue what is euphemistically called the ‘European path’. They want to join the EU even though the benefits of doing so are rather moot. And there are some major obstacles including the determination of Germany to demand Serbian recognition of Kosovo’s” illegal independence” as a precondition. What is bizarre is that Tony Blair has never expressed any regrets about his support for the bombing of Serbia in 1999. Even though his justification for joining the US-led bombing campaign was as false as his reasons for joining Bush in the war against Iraq, in fact, his government and he personally claimed that it was the objective of Serbia to create an apartheid society and to ethnically cleanse Kosovo of the Albanians, which was simply not true. But what is even more bizarre… I mean one might imagine that Serbian PM Vucic would want a former foe on board because he wants to influence the powers that be in Western Europe. But what is particularly bizarre is that they seem to be blissfully unaware of Tony Blair’s low standing in his own country, where he has been under fire primarily for his role in the Iraq war.