Commander of EUROR, major general Dieter Heidecker met with the ambassador of the USA in BiH Patrick Moon, where they discussed about key goals in 2013.
They stressed the importance of providing support to the Armed Forces (AF) BiH in training and the urgent need for the removal of surplus weapons and ammunition in Bosnia.
Already there has been significant progress in the process of professionalization of AF BiH and that activity must continue in order to allow substantial participation of AF BiH in terms of the number and scope of activities in international missions, such as the ISAF mission in Afghanistan and the UN missions.
The Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which already participate in the ISAF mission, demonstrate high professional standards, and such participation in larger scale would help BiH to show that it is eligible for membership in Euro-Atlantic integration.
The problems related to the storage and protection of large quantities of surplus weapons and ammunition, whose condition is deteriorating, are well known in BiH, and are becoming serious, and BiH needs to act decisively to solve that problem.
There is a large number of military personnel deployed to secure the locations with surplus weapons and ammunition, and the reduction of these duties would allow military personnel to be deployed to more productive tasks and professional military education.
They agreed that the OSCE, NATO, the EUSR and other interested countries and international organizations have a fairly consistent view on the issue of support to the implementation of agreements linked to aid the AF BiH in training and program for disposing of surplus weapons and ammunition.
According to a statement from EUFOR such a cooperative approach allows the main actors to avoid duplication of effort and prevents wasting of already scarce resources.
