(ANSA-AFP) - BELGRADO, APR 6 - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said yesterday that army and police found two backpacks containing explosives near a gas pipeline bound for Hungary on Sunday, prompting Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to call an emergency meeting of the defense council as early as today. The backpacks, containing "two large packs of explosives with detonators," according to Vucic, were found in Kanjiza, northern Serbia, "a few hundred meters from the pipeline." The Balkan Stream is an extension of the TurkStream pipeline, which carries Russian gas to Serbia and Hungary. The Serbian president said he had informed Orban, and the latter then announced the convening of the National Defense Council for a meeting this afternoon. Also according to Vucic, the explosives could have "endangered many lives" and caused serious damage to the pipeline. For its part, Hungary denounces the attempted sabotage of the TurkStream pipeline, implicitly blaming Ukraine: "The failed terrorist attack against the TurkStream pipeline is part of the series of Ukrainian attacks in recent weeks," says Foreign Minister Péter Szijjarto, quoted on X by government spokesman Zoltán Kovács. At the end of the National Defense Council convened already yesterday on the issue, Budapest announced that it had decided to place the national section of the pipeline, from the border with Serbia to the border with Slovakia, under military protection after consultations with Serbian, Turkish and Russian energy partners. "We agreed that the pipeline must be protected more decisively than ever before, as attacks are becoming more frequent," Szijjártó added. According to the minister, the sabotage attempt is "a very serious attack on our sovereignty." "We will protect Hungary and its energy supply," he added. (ANSA-AFP).