Ministry of defence Republic of Serbia
 
19.10.2009.

Dusan Spasojevic's statement to Danas daily



We will strengthen military cooperation as well

Military relations between the Russian Federation and Serbia are not at the same level as the economic and politically good relations, however, the visit of the Russian President Dimitry Medvedev will be an excellent opportunity to confirm our initiative at the top state level to promote these relations even further, as State Secretary Dusan Spasojevic said for the daily Danas today.

Dusan Spasojevic says that Russia is an extremely important economical and foreign political factor, especially due to the large support “this friendly country gives us in defending our integrity in Kosovo”.

-In the last two years, the Ministry of Defense started a whole set of initiatives in order to improve military cooperation between Serbia and Russia which, in our view, is not at an adequate level, given good economical and political relations of the two countries.

Defense Ministers’ close associate states that the Minister of Defense of Serbia Dragan Sutanovac has recently invited his Russian counterpart to visit Serbia.

We want to establish a good political military relation between the two ministry. We launched this initiative in 2007. We consider that this would create necessary preconditions for improving cooperation in military industry, military medicine and education, as Spasojevic explains.

He points out that significant progress has been made in the area of military education. Military education is one of the main areas of cooperation, and according to his estimate, is the field where Russia and Serbia want to improve their cooperation.


-for the first time, this year Russia has sent one of its officers for an education at the Serbian Military Academy. There are currently two Serbian officers at the Military Academy. After a long break of several years, Serbia finally sent four of its commanders to Russia for further studies, that is, for a staff command and general staff course.


He reminds that last year, a Protocol on education under special conditions for the members of both Serbian and Russian ministries was signed, which envisions that free studies are based on reciprocity.


As one of the examples of god forms of cooperation, Secretary Spasojevic states that so far the Russian delegation has donated 6 million USD for the clean up process of
Agreement

Furthermore, as Spasojevic says, an Agreement will be signed which would provide the protection of rights and intellectual property and innovations achieved during the military-technical cooperation.

Author: Ivana Pejcic
 
MOD
Ministry of defence Republic of Serbia, Bircaninova 5 street, Belgrade
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