Jeremić orders internal investigation

SERBIA

Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremić has ordered a probe after the media reported that Montenegro’s candidate for ambassador to Serbia was “unwelcome”.

The “urgent investigation” will include “everyone”: from his cabinet chief to the ministry’s human resources clerks, Belgrade daily Večenje Novosti writes.

But the ministry officials were not available for comment on Friday. Several days ago, they said that the details would not be dsicussed while the process of granting agreements to ambassadorial appointments was ongoing.

The newspaper quotes its sources who said that Serbia wants to have “the best relations with Montenegro”, and that it will direct all her powers to achieve good neighborly ties.

At the same time, the incident and a leak of information about Igor Jovović’s past, “does not mean” that the Montenegrin candidate for ambassador will be rejected by Serbia, “since the responsibility for an ambassador’s biography and his career is with the country that sends him”.

Jovović himself would not comment on the reports in the Serbian newspapers, saying only that he was “upholding the Vienna Convention and having Serbia in high regard”, and that he would therefore not discuss “malicious insinuations”.

Belgrade daily Blic reported yesterday that Jovović was involved in “reselling” of alcohol, cigarettes and food while he was serving as Yugoslavia’s ambassador to Ethiopia in the 1990s, and that he also physically assaulted a customs and a protocol officer in that country.

His driver, an Ethiopian national, also claimed that he had bought two pistols found in his possession from Jovović, the newspaper wrote.