President says Serbia would welcome Russian gas price of $400

BELGRADE, Mar 14 (PRIME) -- Serbian President Alexandar Vucic said he would be glad to agree to the price of Russian natural gas of U.S. $400 per 1,000 cubic meters, he said in an interview to TV Pink broadcast on March 12.

The current contract of Russian gas giant Gazprom and Serbia, under which the country buys 6 million cubic meters of gas per day at $270 per 1,000 cubic meters, expires at the end of May.

“When I was at the negotiations with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, I did not want to agree to the price of $400 per 1,000 cubic meters. But now, I would gladly sign this price with both hands,” Vucic said.

He also said that Serbia was under immense pressure from the West due to the fact that it still has open air travel with Russia. Air Serbia is the only European air carrier that still carries out scheduled flights to Russia.

“They say we are making money on the Ukrainian blood, while we have two flights there instead of one. At the same time, they don’t touch other NATO members that are located partially in Europe and in Asia that have 30 times the flights that we have. I am talking about Turkey,” he said.

“Why are they doing nothing about the Persian Gulf countries while they are asking the countries for oil? These states do 15 times more flights than we. We have no problems to return the flights to the previous level of one flight per day, but who said that we are making money on that, is the problem about the additional 30,000 euros?” he said.

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