For seven years, we have been under the influence of Western Europe. We have done all that was asked of us by the West. That was our mistake. But the… - Tomislav Nikolić

Serbia is a step away from a great opportunity, which I assure you we will not miss. We will use all our capacities to make Serbia a European country in every respect, in accordance with the basic values of the Council of Europe – the protection of human rights, the rule of law and democracy. Serbia is firmly committed to continue to co-operate, and to promote its relations, with the Council of Europe to reach such goals for the benefit of its citizens. I trust that we can count on your support along those lines.

We faced a dilemma regarding whether to be in a permanent conflict with the Albanians or to resolve this issue. We did not have too much power in our hands. We did have good arguments and justice on our side, but the international media supports the Albanians very openly. Over the years, our people were forced to leave Kosovo and if this was allowed to continue, we might wake up one day to find out that we have no more of our people there. That is why we have decided to raise the negotiations to the highest possible level and not to take off this territory that is Kosovo that is not fully under the power of Serbia anymore. In the same way we said to the Albanians there is no way to take Kosovo territory that is not under your power, and that is the northern part with the Serbian community. We ask for certain rights for this community. And now we are not waging war, we are negotiating.

You can be at the same time both nationalist and pro-European, but I know this is difficult to explain to you in Europe because Serbian nationalism was always presented as something negative. But I love my country just like you love your country, and [I love] my people like you love your people.