Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic said on Oct. 30 that Russian Ambassador Alexander Konuzin's speech at a Serbian Progressive Party rally was interference in Serbia's internal affairs and that Serbia expected foreign ambassadors to remain neutral.

"When ambassadorial etiquette is breached, by whoever, matters must be restored within their normal boundaries," said Djelic, who declined to respond when asked whether he agreed with League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina leader Nenad Canak's proposal to declare Konuzin a persona non grata.

On Oct. 29, Canak demanded that Serbia "expel" the Russian ambassador, claiming in a news release that Konuzin had definitely demonstrated that Russia was interfering in the internal affairs of Serbia "to an unbearable extent."

Unless this is done now, one can expect the Serbian leadership to be directly blackmailed with the delivery of fuel, while the next image that this conjures is that of "Russian tanks in front of Serbia's parliament," Canak said.

The Social Democratic Union also said that Ambassador Konuzin's speech at the Progressive Party rally was "another in a line of incidents that the ambassador has caused by directly meddling in Serbia's internal politics," adding that "the fact that our diplomacy is ignoring both this and Ambassador Konuzin's previous diplomatic incidents is extremely worrying."