13.10.2016.
Minister Djordjevic at the Belgrade Security Forum
On the second day of the 6th Belgrade Security Forum, held in the Hyatt hotel from 12th to 14th October, Minister of Defence of the Republic Serbia Zoran Djordjevic participated in the panel which was announced as a special event entitled "10 years – Serbia, NATO and Partnership for Peace". Speakers at the panel were Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Serbian Government, Ivica Dacic, and NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and Security Policy James Appathurai, and the moderator was Ivan Vejvoda, Senior Vice-President for Programmes at the Marshall Fund.At the gathering, where politicians and experts from the region and Europe talk about whether democracy will survive the world order crisis, Minister Djordjevic, speaking about the ten-year cooperation with NATO through the Partnership for Peace, pointed out that Serbia is militarily neutral, but also that the path of our country leads to joining the European Union, where most of the member countries are in the NATO Alliance.
- We are to expect a close economic and military cooperation with these countries and I believe that, in that respect, the decision of Serbia to join the Partnership for Peace was good. That shows today when we can confirm with certainty that our relationship is functional and that the Serbian Armed Forces, which passes through the reforms had a chance to take over many good solutions from the partners with extensive experience, Minister Djordjevic said, emphasizing as a particularly important thing that by cooperating with NATO, the Serbian Armed Forces is enhancing its interoperability and defence power.
As the "most recent" form of cooperation, Djordjevic singled out the formation of NATO Trust Fund for the destruction and disassembly of ammunition, mentioning that yesterday at the Technical Repair Facility in Kragujevac, under the auspices of the Fund, the Project of demilitarization of surplus ordnance and improving the capacity of the Facility was officially opened.
The minister pointed out as particularly important, good military cooperation with KFOR which is the guarantor of peace and stability in Kosovo and Metohija, adding that the cooperation that results in deployment of the members of the Serbian Armed Forces to multinational operations under the auspices of the UN and the EU is also worthy of attention, which is particularly essential for the good reputation of Serbia in the world.- We wish to be a factor of stability in the region. Cooperation with NATO is, in that sense, very important, so I would like to say on its tenth anniversary, comparing it to the child growing up, that we passed the first part of the primary school and that now we are starting to distinguish specific subjects to learn for individual majors – the Minister of Defence said adding that the Serbian Armed Forces is trying to continue to achieve good results.
Today's session of the Forum began with a discussion in which Prime Ministers of Serbia and Albania - Aleksandar Vucic and Edi Rama, respectively, participated and it was moderated by Misha Glenny, professor at Columbia University.
The three-day forum, organized by the Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence, the European Movement in Serbia and the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, runs until tomorrow and will try, through a number of panels, to address the challenges that Europe, the region and Serbia face, such as the migrant crisis, Brexit, EU enlargement process, the new security strategy of Europe and others.
