Vreme Forum on Foreign Policy

Last week Vreme organized another forum on foreign policy with many prominent collocutors. Following, we present an excerpt from the speech of the Yugoslav Foreign Minister. If you are interested in a more detailed report, please contact Vreme News Digest Agency.

Ilija Djukic: Inner Sanctions

How is the diplomatic service, such as it is, preparing for the normalization of the FRY's position which should fall into place soon after Dayton?

DJUKIC: "I think a good illustration is an article published recently in a leading Belgrade daily. It boils down to the conclusion that "the diplomatic service failed and that because of it Yugoslavia can't shake the bad image in international circles." The reasons for that are visible only in the "negative choice of personnel" and as a typical example of the choice occurred "especially during the SFRJ (former Yugoslavia)" it lists the employment of "children of people working in the ministry: or "those who learned foreign languages because they lived abroad".

This is an accord with instructions from 1992 sent to all diplomatic and consular missions of the newly declared Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the turning of the federal administration and management into its own under which the service will no longer be able to employ pacifists, Yugoslav oriented internationalists, deviants, cosmopolitans.