Ministry of defence Republic of Serbia
 
08.10.2009.

Dusan Spasojevic makes a statement



Opening a mission with NATO will not affect Serbia’s neutrality

State Secretary in MoD Dusan Spasojevic stated today that opening a Serbian mission in NATO did not collide in any way with military neutrality proclaimed by Serbia reminding the public that the other European countries had also established their representation missions in the civil and military HQ of the Alliance, even Russia.

"Opening a mission in Brussels does not make predict our status or annuls the decision made in December 2007 on the military neutrality. This actually means that we will be able to use all the opportunities of the Partnership for Peace as we have been its rightful member since 2006. this is just a continuation of the policy of several previous governments and a logical conclusion to our membership in PfP”, as Spasojevic stated.

The government had reached its decision on opening a NATO mission in October last year, while two months ago is was decided that Serbia should appoint its ambassador.

“So far we had a Special Envoy of the Minister of Foreign, and that was ambassador Branislav Milinkovic. We are the only country in the northern hemisphere which has no ambassador in Brussels, and all PfP signatories have an ambassador in Brussels, even Russia, Sweden, Switzerland and Austria. The opening of a mission in Brussels will not prejudice our membership in the alliance ort our neutral status”, as Spasojevic pointed out.

He explained that, besides the civil mission in NATO made up of the representatives of MoD and the ministry of Foreign, Serbia will also appoint its representatives with the alliance, and expressed his hope that formal preconditions for opening this mission by the end of Serbia would be created.

These military representative offices within the alliance exist in several locations, where the most important are located in Mons, near Brussels, and the military representation office in the NATO Command HQ in Naples. This is very important representation office for us as this commands is in charge of Kosovo since the KFOR commander is directly subordinate to the Naples commander of NATO forces.
 
MOD
Ministry of defence Republic of Serbia, Bircaninova 5 street, Belgrade
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