State Department on Vucic’s announcements regarding NIS: We don’t prejudge sanctions

The U.S. State Department has no comment on the most recent statement made by the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, who said that the United States would impose sanctions against Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS) due to the majority Russian ownership.

– In general, we do not comment on private diplomatic conversations and do not prejudge sanctions – the U.S. State Department briefly responded to Radio Slobodna Evropa (Radio Free Europe).

Over the past two weeks, Vucic has talked several times about the U.S. imposing sanctions against NIS. The most recent instance was on January 5, when he stated this for RTS.

A day earlier, on January 4, he stated that the U.S. under secretary for economic growth, Jose Fernandez, had confirmed to him that the country would implement direct sanctions against NIS.

Previously, on December 23, the U.S. ambassador to Serbia, Christopher Hill, stated for RTS that there were no announcements that sanctions would be implemented against NIS due to the Russian ownership.

Hill said at the time that there were concerns about whether the Russian-owned NIS helped financed the war in Ukraine in any way and that those were legitimate questions that needed to be carefully considered.

In the meantime, the Government of Serbia adopted the Decision on the funding of a Coordination Body to guide efforts aimed at ensuring a secure supply of oil and natural gas for Serbia, due to, as said, the potential U.S. sanctions against NIS.

The Russian state companies Gazpromneft and its umbrella company Gazprom have had a majority ownership in NIS of 56.15% since 2008, whereas 29.87% is owned by Serbia.

Vlada Republike Srbije

Predsedništvo Republike Srbije

NIS a.d. Novi Sad

Government of Serbia

president of Serbia

Naftna industrija Srbije

NIS

Gazprom

Gazprom Neft

State Department

Aleksandar Vučić

Christopher Hill

Jose Fernandez

US sanctions

sanctions against NIS