A four-day NATO field exercise for managing the consequences of the crisis situations EADRRC “Bosnia and Herzegovina 2017” was yesterday completed in Tuzla by awarding certificates to representatives of 35 countries.
International rescue teams demonstrated their skills and abilities to respond in critical situations in the last four days in the area of Canton Tuzla.
Minister of Security of BiH Dragan Mektic stated that the exercise was successful and that the primary goal was achieved, which is strengthening of mutual cooperation.
He also expressed satisfaction with the fact that he could see the sincere wish and readiness for cooperation between the teams and the observers from the participating countries during the work on the field.
“BiH has achieved two major goals, and these are that we can successfully coordinate and cooperate with different protection and rescue services, and we also showed that we have capacities and we are ready to participate in rescue operations outside BiH in cooperation with teams from other countries,” he noted.
“We want to strengthen regional cooperation in case of any kind of natural disaster because saving lives and material goods depends on the speed of reaction,” added Mektic, and noted that the outstanding skills and top technology presented during the exercise showed the direction in which development of protection and rescue services should go.
The Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC) organized a total of 17 exercises, and this is the first of its kind that was held in our country.
At the end of the ceremony, it was noted that this kind of exercise is giving the opportunity to save lives through timely and effective multinational coordination.
“As the host of this exercise, BiH devoted itself to an important need of people in the country and the region. By doing so, it improves the security of people in the Euro-Atlantic area,” concluded the Head of Civil Emergency Planning Department of NATO, Wolf Dieter Roepke.
(Source: A. K./Klix.ba)
