24.03.2015.
Improvement of cooperation between the Republic of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina
In the course of regular activities of the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Serbia, a meeting was held today between Head of the International Military Cooperation Department Battleship Captain Milan Konjikovac and defence attaché of Bosnia and Herzegovina Colonel Robert Susac.
Both sides stated the importance of regional cooperation and the need for improving cooperation in the field of emergencies. Analyzing cooperation in the field of defence in the past year, they assessed that cooperation is good even with the restrictive budgetary policy, and that it should be further improved in quality and quantity. Particular importance was attributed to the realized and planned high-level visits, and the results of these meetings give added impulse to cooperation.Battleship Captain Konjikovac informed his interlocutor on activities of the Ministry of Defence in the process of accession to the EU and on priorities of the Republic of Serbia during its chairing over OSCE. He thanked for the unchanged stance of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the status of Kosovo and Metohija and stressed that significant results has been achieved in the past period when it comes to the improvement of overall bilateral relations between the two countries.
- Serbia, in accordance with the Dayton Agreement, is dedicated to respecting territorial integrity and sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and supports each agreement adopted by the two entities and three constituent people in Bosnia and Herzegovina – Battleship Captain Konjikovac said, stating that the recent decision of the EU Council to sign and implement the Agreement on stabilization and accession with Bosnia and Herzegovina, if the promised reforms are conducted, is extremely important, because mutual European perspective gives framework for improvement of relations in the region. He expressed his belief that cooperation will be intensified in main fields in the future period – education and training, military-medical, military-economic and cultural-sports cooperation.
Colonel Susac stated that the best results were achieved in the field of education and training. He conveyed readiness for this trend to be continued in the next year as well, because investing in education sets strong foundation for long-term friendly relations. A significant step has been made in the field of training for multinational operations, which has been formalized with the established cooperation between the Peace Support Operations Training Centre (PSOTC) in Butmir and the Peacekeeping Operations Center in Belgrade.
At the end of the meeting, the Bilateral Military Cooperation Plan for 2015 was devised and signed.
