(ANSA) - BELGRADE - Serbia is open to collaboration with its partners both in the West and in the East, while maintaining its military neutrality, defense minister Aleksandar Vulin said this in a meeting in Belgrade with General Petr Pavel, head of Nato's Military Committee.

The talks, the defense ministry reported, focused on the political and security situation in the Balkan region, the collaboration between Serbia and the Atlantic Alliance and between Serbia's army and KFOR, the Nato force in Kosovo. According to Vulin, collaboration within the Partnership for Peace remains the best framework to develop contacts and exchanges between Serbia and Nato. The minister underlined at the same time the greatest threat to Serbia's security remains the secession of Kosovo and Pristina's plans to create its own regular Armed Forces. Belgrade considers this plan ''unacceptable''.

Pavel, who said he was satisfied with the collaboration between Nato and Serbia, told private broadcaster B92 that, with regard to Russian influence in Serbia and in the region, Nato is not worried about it, but about the interference that may result from this influence. (ANSA).