Reaction: MFA does its job, Non-paper is an objective document

Today, Pobjeda daily newspaper published on its front cover an extensive text regarding a Non-paper document of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in which the author tried to present this form of diplomatic communication as questionable, and its content as scandalous. Not long after, Andrija Nikolić, the MP from the DPS opposition party stated that Minister Radulović “heavily abused his official position by sending instructions to our embassies”, as if giving instructions based on facts and sending a non-paper document to diplomatic-consular offices is not a job of the Minister and the Ministry.

Still, it is true that by misusing the official document, a bad intent was clearly shown, followed by a bombastic headline and the announcement of a proposition to begin the interpellation process and Minister’s dismissal from office.

In this case we can talk about degradation of the, reputation and professional ethics , but in context of publication of an internal document and an inappropriate interpretation of the state authority’s work.

There is a based suspicion that article 112, paragraph 1, point 3 (sharing information with unauthorized individuals), of the Foreign Affairs Law was violated, which presents a heavy violation of official duty. Understanding editorial policy of some media and the freedom of expression, once again I wish to point out to an unacceptable publication of an official, signed correspondence document, signed by whoever, and its malicious interpretation. Since my goal is to work on professionalization of the diplomatic network, I note that this means that official authorities are already working on this case, in which someone tried to degrade the reputation of this profession and this institution.

Concretely, this Non-paper presented a facticity and gave an explanation of an event based on available information. Informing, as you should know, is MFA’s job and it was done without any political coloration. Because of that, I strongly reject statements that this MFA document ‘forged information”.

I emphasize that professional police action was confirmed by international partners and that Montenegrin citizens could witness restraint of the police which went to extreme limits in order to evade any action that could violate peace, all while securing the respect of fundamental rights. I remind that it is a fact that police stood by calmly and protected our country for 30 hours, regardless of different interpreting of a beginning and an end to this action.

Extremely inappropriate were the statements like “date manipulation, brutal lies, bland spinning etc.”, as well as an accusation that the MFA had an intent to criminalize President Đukanović, DPS and other parties before the EU and the US. Once again, I emphasize that the report sent to our diplomatic-consular offices was based on facts, but the way somebody experiences these facts, is a personal perception.

Anyhow, this is neither the first, nor the last Non-paper document which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be sending to our diplomatic-consular offices. In this moment we wish to inform the public and remind the participants that are being revolted by this document, that the MFA sent Non-paper documents regarding various previous events and domestic topics, from 2019 Budva events to religious protests during previous Government mandates, back then, some media and their journalists didn’t publish official documents in order to uncover new dimensions of “investigative journalism”. On the contrary –texts of the media that supported previous Governments, published texts that served as political narratives and guidelines for our correspondence with our diplomatic – consular offices.

In the light of former instructions, which we in the MFA are very familiar with and which weren’t infrequent, I wouldn’t argue much about objectivity and wouldn’t move the discussion in that direction, if I were in Mr. Nikolić’s spot. For his and dignity’s sake.

Finally, since the term “non-paper” is being used quite often in the public, shouldn’t it be known that this isn’t an official, but an “unofficial diplomatic document”, which has an informal character. In this case, this was done in order to provide information to the international public from a factual aspect.