The head of the NATO Military Liaison Office in Belgrade, Italian Brigadier General Giampiero Romano, said that NATO respects Serbia’s military neutrality policy and that it is up to official Belgrade to decide in which direction and in what way it wants to develop a partnership with that alliance.
“NATO fully respects Serbia’s policy of military neutrality, as well as its decision to remain at the partner level. The fact that Serbia does not want to join NATO has not prevented us from achieving excellent results so far… It depends on Serbia which path it wants to choose , according to how he sees his future. Whatever decision Serbia makes, of course, NATO will respect it. I believe that mutual respect is the starting point of every relationship,” said Romano in an interview for Demostat.
Romano said that he is aware that NATO is still a controversial topic in Serbia due to the bombing in 1999 and reminded that the Secretary General of NATO recently expressed his condolences to all those who lost loved ones on both sides.
“We must not forget the past, but we can work together and move forward. This is what NATO and Serbia are doing through this partnership, we are moving towards a better future. I repeat, I believe that we must not forget the past, but we can move forward, as happened in Italy, for example, after the Second World War. We suffered many losses then, not only in lives, but in terms of monuments, culture, infrastructure and so on. But then we decided to look to the future, to move forward, and now we are where we are. I hope that Serbia will be even more successful than Italy in the future,” said Romano.
He said that Serbia is an important and valued partner of NATO, that this cooperation is mutually beneficial and that the citizens of Serbia “are not fully aware” of how much is being done and achieved through that partnership.
“From the very beginning, we are trying to create a partnership that is tailored to best suit the needs and wishes of Serbia, with full respect for Serbia’s proclaimed policy of military neutrality. As I have already said, Serbia cooperates with the Atlantic Alliance on several different levels, in the political, military and the scientific domain. We have well-established communication, among other things, at the highest political level, where there is regular contact between the President of Serbia and the Secretary General of NATO,” said Romano.
When it comes to military cooperation, he mentioned Serbia’s participation in peacekeeping missions under the auspices of the UN or the EU and cited as an example the fact that Serbian soldiers, among other things, work together with Italian soldiers in Lebanon.
“So, as you can see, Serbia and NATO are closer than it seems at first glance,” he said.
