Serbian top state officials in new assault on United Group

The letter criticized the Serbian authorities for statements which they said were destabilizing the Western Balkans, deepening corruption and pressure on the media and called for a travel ban and freeze of assets of some officials.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic responded to the letter over the weekend saying that it was an assault on Serbia and claiming that he has no assets outside the country. “Freeze my accounts? I’m not Djilas or Solak, I have no accounts outside the country… It seems that someone is losing a lot of money, billions of Euro, could it be the owners of your house Solak and Djilas,” Vucic said replying to an N1 reporter’s question.

Vucic said that he is a president fighting for his people, maintaining peace and stability. “None of my predecesors had as many meetings with world leaders as I did, not all of them combined. I am the president of a freedom-loving people,” he said.

The Serbian President said that the congressmen demanding the freeze of assets are “Albanian lobbyists who supported the bombing and aggression against our country”. “They supported resolutions which said that the Serbs are a genocidal people and they supported the sanctions against the Serbs,” he said. Vucic added that the response to the letter would come in the form off a Serb resolution which he claims will be signed by many more members of congress.

Speaking on the pro-regime TV Pink, Prime Minister Ana Brnabic followed in Vucic’s footsteps saying that reports about the president’s family were attacks on the president. “This is a direct attack on President Vucic,” she said on the Hit Tvit live talk show commenting reports of Montenegro lifting the entry ban on the president’s son Danilo. She claimed that the government and the president had no idea that Danilo Vucic had been banned from traveling to Montenegro.

According to Brnabic, “terrible attacks” have been launched in the public and the media against the president and government and showed a copy of Monday’s issue of Belgrade daily Danas as proof. “The attacks are by media owned by Solak and Djilas and that is the dirtiest campaign we have ever seen and it is just beginning,” she said. Danas is part of United Group along with N1.

She also accused media in other parts of the region also owned by the same people of joining in what she said is “the most brutal” campaign against Vucic and his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).

Brnabic told the pro-regime TV Happy on Monday morning that Djilas was in Washington to lobby for sanctions against Serbia and added that she can’t believe that Djilas met with any member of congress without money being exchanged. They “paid a little more” for the letter to be written,” she said.