29.11.2010.

Defense ministers of Brazil and Serbia meet

Minister of Defense Dragan Sutanovac and Minister of defense of the Federative Republic of Brazil Nelson Azevedo Jobim met today in the House of Guards, on which occasion they signed a Bilateral Military Cooperation Agreement.

Minister Sutanovac expressed great pleasure with the visit of his Brazilian counterpart which is the first recorded visit of a Brazilian minister of defense to our country.
On this occasion the Serbian defense minister said that this agreement would enable the development of bilateral cooperation specially in the areas of military economy, science and technology, as well as military education.

We discussed the possibilities of common development of arms and military equipment completely aware of the size of Brazil with respect to Serbia, but also with clear capacities that our country has in the area of military economy cooperation with a large number of foreign countries, as Sutanovac remarked expressing his conviction that there was much room for investing into products which could be placed on third markets.

Even though Brazil is so far away from Serbia, we hope that this cooperation can be fruitful, as we expect during the partner arms fair in July next year to receive a delegation of Brazilian military experts and consider all possibilities for future cooperation, as Sutanovac stressed, adding that our side was very much interested in hearing about the Brazilian experiences in peace keeping missions. Furthermore, as he reminded a larger group of medical students from Brazil paid a visit to Serbia recently and that there was room for cooperation given the capacities of the Military Medical Academy.

Minister of Defense of Brazil Nelson Azevedo Jobim said that this signed agreement would cover all areas of cooperation in future cooperation with Serbia, as the next step would be, as he announced, forming work groups which would define direction of further cooperation during their mutual visits.
Minister Jobim stated that his country was very much interested in developing military technical institutes, as they are important institutions for any country as they are tasked with developing advanced modern technologies. He confirmed that Brazil was committed to cooperating with Serbia in the area of peace keeping operations, as the next year would be a year of approximation of Brazil and Serbia.