(Bloomberg) -- Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic, who is openly gay and has a child with her partner, hit back after an attack by a high-ranking Orthodox cleric against her and the LGBTQ+ community and made a plea for national unity. 

Nikanor, bishop of Banat, in northern Serbia, last week publicly excoriated Brnabic along with the organizers of EuroPride, an international LGBTQ+ event slated for September in the capital Belgrade. He called on his followers to actively oppose the event and said he would resort to arms if needed, to fight “those who have committed sacrilege against everything we hold dear in our country.”

Brnabic retorted, calling the comments by the religious leader hurtful -- and said the nation’s attention should turn to talks with Kosovo, a former Serbian province that declared independence in 2008. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic travels to Brussels to resume negotiations on mending ties with Kosovo on Thursday.

“Now we have to fight for Serbia, we can’t afford to quarrel among ourselves,” Brnabic said in an interview to Pink TV on Tuesday. “We have to give our full support to Serbia’s president, who will be fighting in the talks in Brussels so that we can have peace.”

Vucic will meet his counterpart from Kosovo, Albin Kurti, under the auspices of the European Union and NATO. The mediators are trying to diffuse the tensions following a recent flare-up over a plan to require identification cards and car number plates issued by the government in Pristina.

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