Minister of Foreign Affairs Vuk Jeremic will be on a one-day bilateral visit to Russia on 15 December, to meet with Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov.

The Ministry says in a statement that Jeremic will also meet with President of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate Metropolitan Hilarion.

According to the Russian official, the two ministries are to sign a cooperation plan for the period 2011-2012. The relations between Serbia and Russia are characterized by productive political dialogue and intensive high level contacts between governments, parliaments and ministries, indicating that the bilateral agreements are to be raised to the level of strategic partnership, he said.

Furthermore, the Russian-Serbian cooperation in the international arena mainly refers to European topics and resolution of problems in the Western Balkans.

Russia and Serbia stick to a principled stand according to which the final solution to the Kosovo issue has to be found through a dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina and based on UN Security Council Resolution 1244, the official stated for RIA Novosti.

Speaking about the dynamics and perspectives of the development of the Russian-Serbian trade and economic ties, the Russian official stated that Serbia has traditionally been the leader among the Western Balkan countries with regard to the volume of cooperation with Russia.

The volume of goods exchange in 2009, regardless of the global economic crisis, surpassed USD 2.3 billion, he said, adding that projects in the energy sphere are in progress, including the South Stream gas pipeline, the Banatski Dvor underground gas storage, and the development of Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS), the petroleum industry of Serbia.