Serbian leader Vucic apologizes for voting at UN

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said in a statement on TV in his country that he supported the UN General Assembly's draft resolution demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine and that he thought it was a mistake.

Stating that Serbia should "abstain" on the draft resolution on which it voted "yes", Vucic noted the following:

"We should have taken a neutral stance on this issue. I think Serbia made a mistake, so I apologize to the citizens of Serbia and take responsibility for it. Maybe I'm tired, maybe I'm too busy and I can't keep up with everything. We voted 'yes' on the European draft resolution. We did exactly as we should have done on the US draft resolution and abstained. But in my opinion, we should have abstained on the European draft resolution as well. So I'm sure I'll lose political support or points in Europe because of this, but I still believe Serbia should abstain."

Stating that he has the right to express his own opinion and position as the president, Vucic said that they should abstain in line with the interests of his country.

VOTING IN THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY

At the UN General Assembly session, a draft resolution prepared by Ukraine, demanding "the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces and an end to the war" and supported by European Union (EU) countries, was put to a vote.

Ukraine's bill was approved by the General Assembly with 93 "yes" votes to 18 "no" votes. 65 countries abstained from voting.

In the vote, the United States and Russia voted "no" to the bill, while Türkiye was among the countries that voted "yes".

On the other hand, as a result of the amendments made in the bill submitted by the USA, in addition to the Ukrainian bill, to the phrase "Russia-Ukraine conflict" as "full-scale occupation of Ukraine by the Russian Federation", being accepted in the hall, the USA abstained from voting on its own bill. The USA bill was accepted with 93 votes to 8, while 73 countries abstained.