Talking to the Serbian press during his trip to New York, Jeremic said he was confident that Serbia's neighbours would also benefit from his being elected to that post and that his election would also have an affirmative value for Serbia and for western Balkan countries.

Jeremic is on a visit to the UN headquarters where he is expected to hold talks with diplomatic representatives of the Caribbean countries and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

At the end of January, Belgrade submitted Jeremic's candidacy for chairman of the UN general assembly and Jeremic's only counter-candidate is Lithuanian Ambassador with the UN, Dalia Leinarte.

The decision on that will be adopted at the end of May or in early June and the one-year mandate of the new chairman of the UN General Assembly starts in September with the annual group session in New York.

Croatian Foreign and European Affairs Minister Vesna Pusic said last week Croatia had promised it would support Lithuania's candidacy and that Croatia kept its word, which indirectly confirmed that Croatia would not support Jeremic.

Montenegrin President Filip Vujanovic told the Belgrade-based B92 that Montenegro would support Jeremic's candidacy for the sake of good relations with its neighbours.

According to the Belgrade media, Bosnia and Herzegovina has not yet decided whether it will support Jeremic's candidacy.