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Czech Republic to provide assistance to Serbia over migrant crisis: PM

Xinhua, September 2, 2015 Adjust font size:

Visiting Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka on Tuesday said his country would provide support to Serbia in dealing with the migrant issue.

Sobotka, who arrived here for a two-day visit with representatives of some 30 companies from the Czech Republic, was received with the highest state and military honors.

The main topics of his meeting with his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic revolved around the escalating migrant crisis in Serbia and the country's EU aspirations.

At a joint press conference, Sobotka commended reforms and results that Serbia achieved this year, and offered technical and expert assistance to Serbia in EU negotiations.

He also announced financial support of 360,000 euros (about 406,800 U.S. dollars) and technical assistance to help with the crisis of migrants from Syria, Middle East and African countries.

"We always insisted that in every crisis we reach a consensus within the EU. The Czech Republic wishes to partake in a debate how to solve this and insist on a joint solution," Sobotka said, adding that his country and other three countries of the Visegrad group, namely Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, stand for securing the Schengen area.

He said the security situation should be stabilized in countries where migrants come from, and that refugee centers should be opened there.

Vucic said 115,000 refugees passed through Serbia since the beginning of the year while at the moment 7,800 are within the country's borders.

He said he understood the migrants' plight as Serbia also faced a refugee crisis of its own people in the 1990s.

"We expect to receive a strategy (from the EU), and we will support it although we are still not an EU member country. We are ready to receive certain obligations and responsibility as an EU candidate country," Vucic said.

Stressing that Serbia has "very good, truly friendly relations" with the Czech Republic, Vucic said that two prime ministers discussed ways to finance joint projects, mostly in the areas of infrastructure and energy.

Praising the Czech Republic for its steady growth of 4 percent in the first half of 2015, Vucic said the country ranked among most successful in Europe. Endit