24.09.2009.
Ministers Dacic and Sutanovac sign a telecommunication cooperation agreement
Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac and the Minister of Interior Ivica Dacic signed a telecommunication cooperation agreement in the government of Serbia today, which should enable shared use and development of telecommunication systems both in the military and the police.Minister Sutanovac said that this would mean better cooperation for both ministries even at operational level, and that today’s agreement should mean the rationalization of national resources in this case telecommunication systems. AS the minister of defense stated, the Police possessed one of the top telecommunication systems in the world-the tetra system and that both MoD and SAF were planning to develop their telecommunication and signaling systems in this direction, which would save a lot of the budgetary funds.
Minister of Defense remarked that today’s event represented the result of a very fruitful cooperation of two ministries’ expert services, and stressed that relations of the Police and MoD were at a very high level which can be seen in the fact that a number of real-estate had been placed at the disposal of the Police.
According to the agreement, the Police will be able to use certain frequencies, points of emission, and SAF’s telecommunication structure, without interfering with the regular functioning of SAF units. The tetra system should be upgraded in order to enable this system to have national coverage. This process of upgrading the tetra system should be done not only by the police and SAf but by other ministries as well which could use it. The two ministries should cooperate jointly in order to provide greater safety and security to the Serbian citizens as this is Serbia’s national interest.In his answer to reporters’ questions, the Minister said that the Government had adopted the acts on the Military Security and Military Intelligence agencies, while remarking that the speedy adoption of these acts in the Parliament would round up the legal reform of defense system. The acts will enter the parliamentary procedure at the parliament’s session on 5 October stressing that he expected them to be adopted soon. These are modern legal solutions which have been in the procedure for over a year now. These laws envision as he said introducing a much more stricter civil control in the form of internal control and a general inspector as these persons will be able to control the work of all services in the depth of the system.
As for the cooperation so far. Minister said that MoD had so far invested tens of millions euros and that it has been on a friendly basis and that future cooperation would be realized in the spirit of today’s agreement.As for the current security situation, both ministers estimated the situation as stable.
