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Slovenia promises to help Serbia on tackling refugee crisis

Xinhua, October 9, 2015 Adjust font size:

Slovenian President Borut Pahor promised his Serbian counterpart Tomislav Nikolic, who is on a two-day visit to Ljubljana, that Slovenia would directly help Serbia in dealing with the refugee crisis, the Slovenian Press Agency (STA) reported on Thursday.

Meanwhile Pahor emphasised the priority treatment of the Balkan migration route within the EU in a statement after he received Nikolic with military honors in Ljubljana on Thursday.

As regards the refugee crisis, Pahor explained that since September Slovenia has been participating in the Twining project supporting Serbia's asylum system. Starting with 2016, the police force will cooperate in the fight against people smuggling.

Nikolic assessed that the countries in the region are facing a refugee crisis of disastrous proportions and that Serbia has acted responsibly in "securing for the migrants a safe passage to countries that are their final destination".

He feels "some countries in the region were not ready to face this problem in a suitable manner", but did not specify which ones.

He expects the EU "will make an additional effort for individual countries to act in line with international law".

Pahor and Nikolic both feel an EU agreement on the issue is necessary.

Pahor reiterated that Slovenia supported Serbia's accession to the EU, saying that it was "strategically important" for peace and security in the region, as well as for the EU as a whole, that the time lapse between Croatia's and Serbia's accession was not too long. Endit