The rattle of weapons in the Balkans and mutual accusations became a common phenomenon in the rhetoric of certain leaders. Once the accusations were flashing between Croatia and Serbia after Croatia decided to obtain multiple rocket launcher.
Recently, tense diplomatic relations are present on the relation Croatia – BiH as well, especially since the President of Croatia, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, said that BiH represents the greatest threat to Croatia due to terrorism and “several thousand soldiers of ISIS who returned to BiH from Syria”.
These allegations of Croatian president were denied by the Minister of Security of BiH Dragan Mektic, and member of the Presidency of BiH Bakir Izetbegovic reacted as well and called the President of Croatia to think twice, because Ustasha extremism is rising in Croatia.
Military analyst Nedzad Ahatovic noted that it is true that there is a problem of extremism in the area of Balkans, including returnees from battlefields in Syria and Chetniks movement, but it is highly unlikely that there will be a new war in the Balkans.
“None of the Balkan countries at the moment has economic potential to start a war in the long run. Even if some kind of armed conflict actually occurs, it will be short, because no one has money to fund a long-term conflict,” said Ahatovic.
He believes that BiH does not represent a military threat to any country in the Balkans, since the Armed Forces of BiH are well equipped at the moment, and that their logistics is sufficient to defend the country against aggression, but not to attack any other country.
“BiH has no territorial aspirations towards any other country, but it is possible that others still have. To recall, Belgrade has documented territorial aspirations towards BiH in the Memorandum 2 SANU which explicitly states that the RS will become a part of Serbia in the next 20 years. Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said recently that he has the largest military force in the Balkans, and I must say that he is actually right. Serbia has 52,000 soldiers, Croatia has 22,000 soldiers, and BiH has 10,000 soldiers. I believe that BiH is not a threat to anyone,” said Ahatovic.
He believes that statements of Croatian president in the past period were taken out of context.
He added that BiH must not ignore the possible threat from people who returned from the Syria.
“Anyone who would want to destabilize BiH could play on that card. For this reason, it is very important that the state security structures do not neglect this problem,” said Ahatovic.
(Source: fokus.ba)
