Serbian President Boris Tadic will pay a visit to Novi Pazar, Southwestern Serbia, on Monday for the second time this year and tour the construction works on road infrastructure in which the Serbian government plans to invest RSD 900 million (EUR 1 = RSD 107).

Tadic first visited the Church of the Saint Apostles Peter and Paul, also known as the Church of St. Peter, where he was welcomed by newly-elected administrator of the Diocese of Raska-Prizren Teodosije.

Apart from Bishop Teodosije, President Tadic was also welcomed by clergy of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) and an art society from Raska.

The president is also scheduled to visit the construction site of a bypass road around Novi Pazar linking Tutin and Sopocani, and works on the construction of the Karajukic Bunari - Budjevo crossroad.

Tadic will also visit one Serb and one Bosniak family in the nearby villages.

The Serbian president is accompanied by Minister of Labor and Social Policy Rasim Ljajic and Minister without Portfolio Sulejman Ugljanin.

Serbian President Boris Tadic said Monday that the state will do absolutely everything to improve the economic situation in the Sandzak region, despite the economic difficulties it is faced with.

During his tour of the works on the bypass road around the city of Novi Pazar (southwest Serbia), Tadic said that the state is aware of how hard it is to live in this region as the citizens are caught in persistent poverty.

“I know that many enterprises, which used to do good business here, are now closed, but the Serbian government is even in this difficult situation ready to allocate substantial investments for the region,” Tadic said.

He said that it was decided that the motorway toward Montenegro should go through Pester, a karst plateau in the Raska (Sandzak) region, and that a pipeline which is to connect the region to the rest of Serbia should be completed over the next three years.

The Serbian president told reporters that Bosniaks' right to have their own culture and language cannot be called into question and that religious rights are defined by law.

“At the time of passing the bill on religious rights, none of the existing religious communities had any objection to it, and I will make sure that everybody in Serbia has their religious and ethnic freedoms guaranteed. This part of the country cannot differ from any other in that respect,” Tadic underlined.