The stability of Bosnia and Herzegovina is crucially important to Croatia and that is why it is a sincere advocate of its Euro-Atlantic path, Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlić Radman said today in Brussels.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the head of Croatian diplomacy will participate in the meeting of foreign ministers of NATO member states, where one of the topics will be the situation in the Western Balkans.
“We are sincere advocates of the Euro-Atlantic path of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the stability of our immediate neighbor is of crucial importance,” Grlić Radman said before the start of the meeting.
He said that Croatia helps Bosnia and Herzegovina both bilaterally and within NATO, and that it has given it half a million euros in aid as part of a package to strengthen the country’s defense capabilities.
Grlić Radman called on Serbia and Kosovo to return to dialogue and appealed to Serbia that any attempts to destabilize its neighbor are not acceptable.
The Secretary General of the Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, said before the meeting that NATO will do everything necessary to ensure peace and stability in the Western Balkans because it is important for the whole of Europe.
“Be assured, NATO will do what is necessary to maintain or ensure stability in the region, because this is important not only for the Western Balkans, but also for the whole of Europe,” said Stoltenberg, who was on a tour last week in the region.
Stoltenberg pointed out that in the last few weeks, tension has increased in the Western Balkans, citing incendiary rhetoric in Bosnia and Herzegovina, serious violent incidents in the north of Kosovo, including attacks on NATO soldiers, an armed attack by a Serbian paramilitary group in the village of Banjska in September, in in which three people were killed.
