Defense Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina Zukan Helez said today in Sarajevo that for the first time in the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina we have sky surveillance.
“Every plane, every aircraft of any kind that enters Bosnia and Herzegovina, we in the Ministry of Defense, in our Center, see it and fully monitor the sky,” said Helez.
He said this in response to a journalist’s question to comment on the statement of the PSBiH House of People’s delegate Džemal Smajić that “we do not control our skies and thus do not exercise our full sovereignty in the airspace”.
“So that Smajić doesn’t say something, Minister Helez or Minister Forto say something else, I invite you to come to our Center and let’s look at it all together,” said Helez.
He added that they are in the stage of agreement with the United States of America, “to get two primary radars, which are very expensive and to fully control the entire image of the sky, unrelated to civilian radars”.
BiH Minister of Transport and Communications Edin Forto said that Smajić and “everyone who mentions this topic as a controversial topic in BiH” are confusing the public by not clarifying what civil control of the sky is and what military control of the sky is.
“There is constant mention of sovereignty, violation of sovereignty, control of the sky, etc. The Ministry of Defense is responsible for the sovereignty of the sky. It was Minister Helez who said that, for the first time, since yesterday, the Ministry of Defense is in complete control, it has a full picture in the exchange of information with all civil and military radars that cover our skies,” stated Forto.
Essentially, he added, the civilian agency that controls our skies, that is BHANSA, has been exchanging with the Armed Forces for the first time since yesterday everything it needs to know about how, who and what moves in our skies.
“Regarding civilian coverage and the story of how we pay Croatia and Serbia for coverage, this is a matter called civilian control, which is fully coordinated with Eurokontrol, which is in Brussels,” said Forto.
He added that, as he was informed, in the coming period BHANSA, which is an independent agency, will invest a minimum of 15 million BAM in the next three to five years in additional radar infrastructure in order to additionally cover the sky and then “how, if there are some pockets which are currently covered by some radars from neighboring countries, which is a completely normal practice, in order to cover that as well”.
“I can’t believe that this is being made into a topic,” said Forto, Fena reports.
