14.01.2018.
Minister Vulin: Excellent Cooperation between the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Interior on Securing the Border
Minister of Defence Aleksandar Vulin, accompanied by Chief of General Staff of the Serbian Armed Forces General Ljubiša Diković and the Army Commander Lieutenant General Milosav Simović visited today the members of Joint Forces of the Serbian armed Forces and the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Serbia, engaged on securing the state border on an occupied facility “Mokranje” near a border crossing of the same name.
The minister of defence was informed about the tasks executed by the members of the Joint Forces, and about the situation in Sector “V” by Colonel Vladeta Baltić, Commander of the Joint Forces of the armed forces and the MI engaged on securing a part of the state border, and by Lieutenant Colonel Zoran Cvetanović, Commander of the Sector “V”, while Second Lieutenant Aleksandra Andonov, commander of the occupied facility “Mokranje” informed the minister about the situation in that facility.
- Today, in the territory of the Republic of Serbia, there are around 4000 migrants, which certainly is a number which we can control. The largest number of them, by far, is in our reception centres, where they are under control, medically taken care of and protected in any other way. And it is not only them that are protected, but all our citizens as well. In the previous year, the joint forces of the military and police prevented some 22000 migrants from illegally entering our territory. You can only imagine how it would look like, if it had not been for all these girls and boys from the Ministry of Interior and Serbian Armed Forces, how our country would look like if the migrant crisis had been utterly uncontrolled, if it had not been for all of them who were here each day, regardless of weather conditions and regardless of any difficulty and pressure, and who worked and prevented our territory from becoming the object of illegal migration, from jeopardising our everyday way of life and from all those negative occurrences that follow the migrant crisis emerging in the territory of the Republic of Serbia – the minister of defence said.He pointed out that all the members of the Serbian Armed Forces and Ministry of Interior cooperated on the task of protecting the state border and our territory, and that they paid attention to ensure that every citizen of the country was safe, and every migrant exercised its rights that were honoured.
- The Government of the Republic of Serbia expresses sincere gratitude to the members of the Serbian Armed Forces and Ministry of Interior for their extraordinary courage, exceptional self-sacrifice and everything that they have done to significantly increase the reputation of our country at the time of the migrant crisis – Aleksandar Vulin stressed and added that all other countries had rather bad experiences in that.- Quite often, all other countries showed that they were not very well organised and not such good hosts, but we have presented ourselves as a country that is highly organised, and capable of protecting these people, but first of all, capable of protecting the everyday life of each of our citizens. We will continue acing like that in the period to come as well, primarily taking care of the everyday life of the citizens of Serbia, of the protection of our territory and of the fact that the effects of the migrant crisis must not jeopardise a single citizen of Serbia – Minister Vulin emphasised.
After the completed tour, Colonel Vladeta Baltić, Commander of the Joint Forces and Chief Police Adviser Nenad Vučić, Head of Regional Centre of Border Police towards the Republic of Serbia, said that the cooperation between the armed forces and polices was at a high level, and that though joint work the tasks are created and successfully carried out, which contributed to the significant decrease in illegal migrants in this area.
Young Second Lieutenant Aleksandra Andonov, Commander of the occupied facility “Mokranje” said that the tasks daily discharged with the members of Gendarmerie and border police were executed on time, without any objection, and that it did not matter who was commanding the line, whether it was a man or a woman.
