18.07.2017.
Cooperation Marked by Friendship and Understanding
Today, the Minister of Defence, Aleksandar Vulin talked with Ambassador of the Republic of India, Mrs. Narinder Chauhan about the opportunities for the enhancement of defence cooperation.
The cooperation between Serbia and India is marked by friendship and understanding, hence during the talks it was established that there existed mutual readiness for intensification of political dialogue and development of the overall cooperation, having in mind that the visit from Aleksandar Vučić to India, the first visit at that level since 1986, had marked a beginning of a new era in the relations between the two countries.
On that account, Ambassador Chauhan conferred to Vulin a personal invitation of Indian Minister of Defence to visit that country.
- Today, India is one of the countries with the fastest growing economy, and Serbia should use it to increase its presence at Indian market, which also refers to the cooperation of defence industries – Vulin stated and expressed his belief that recently launched initiatives of Serbian companies for the cooperation in the field of technology transfer with Indian companies would take this field at a higher level.
The Minister of Defence and the Ambassador agreed that, in the previous period, defence cooperation was not at the level of the overall political relations, and that it would be the common task in the period to come. There is room for the enhancement of the cooperation in the fields of military economic, military medical and military educational cooperation, and the Indian side is particularly interested in the courses organised in the CBRN Training Centre in Kruševac. Also visits between the centres for peacekeeping operations were suggested and the opportunity was announced for the visit from Indian high educational institutions to Serbia.
Minister Vulin expressed gratitude for the support that India renders to territorial integrity and sovereignty of Serbia, and particularly for the support during the voting at the General Conference of UNESCO when it had been shown who the true and sincere friends of Serbia were and the world clearly stated that the so called “Kosovo” did not belong in that organisation.
Serbia endeavours in a peaceful manner to ensure a normal life for Serbian community in Kosovo and Metohija, and it does all in its power to prevent the announced transformation of Kosovo Security Forces into the so called “Kosovo Armed Forces” – Vulin stated and expressed dissatisfaction with the poor implementation of a portion of the Brussels Agreement which refers to the establishment of the Association of Serbian Municipalities.
Vulin said that Serbia had signed agreements on defence cooperation with all countries of the region except for Albania, and as the largest state and regional leader, it would continue being a promoter of stability in that part of Europe.
Other topics covered at the meeting were today’s security challenges, terrorism and migrant crisis, so Minister Vulin pointed out that Serbia supported the actions of all sides aimed at mitigating the situation in Syria, hoping that the interest and joint efforts of the Russian Federation and the USA would align in the fight against the “Islamic State”.
