(BELGRADE) - Serbia's deputy prime minister for European Union integration, Bozidar Djelic, was "infuriated" by the Netherlands' refusal to unfreeze an EU trade and aid pact, he said in an interview published Wednesday.

"I am disappointed and infuriated, just like (Serbian citizens)" about the Dutch veto, Djelic was quoted as telling the daily Vecernje Novosti.

"I feel an injustice has been done to us by one country -- the Netherlands," he said in reference to the Dutch decision earlier this week to veto the unfreezing of the interim trade and aid deal.

"But I am also encouraged," Djelic said of the backing from other EU members to unblock the agreement, part of a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) seen as a first step to EU membership.

"Serbia has never had such a degree of support on behalf of 25 countries of the European Union and all of the European Commission. This is an element one should not forget.

"We will continue to defend our strategic interests -- EU adhesion by 2014, the defence of territorial integrity (over Kosovo), privileged relations with the Russian Federation and the fight against corruption and crime."

On Monday, EU foreign ministers failed to convince the Netherlands to drop its objections despite an improvement in Belgrade's war crimes cooperation as reported by the chief prosecutor at the UN war crimes tribunal, Serge Brammertz.

The Netherlands insists it will only lift its veto once Belgrade arrests the two remaining war crimes fugitives, wartime Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic and former Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic, or Brammertz reports that Serbia is "fully cooperating" with a UN tribunal based in The Hague.

In the interview, Djelic said that Serbia will now work towards "unilaterally" implementing parts of the SAA, a move which he said had the backing of EU enlargement chief Olli Rehn.

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