”I am proud of today’s event and everything I saw during the military exercise held under the auspices of NATO forces,” said Prime Minister of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina Fadil Novalic for Fena news agency yesterday.
Members of the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the United States Army organized yesterday a demonstration exercise at the Manjaca range as part of a joint multi-day exercise “Immediate Response 21”, which Prime Minister Novalic also attended.
“Honestly, it was a great honor for me to see how capable our Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina are. We must be proud of them,” Novalic added.
Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Zeljko Komsic, spoke at the training ground in Manjaca yesterday on the occasion of the military exercise of the Armed Forces (AF) of BiH and the United States (U.S.).
“First of all, I would like to express my sincere admiration for your efforts to show that in this small but proud country of BiH, together with our partners from the U.S., we can accept and present on the field the highest military standards set by our intention to become a member of NATO one day, ” he said at the beginning.
He recalled that a year and a half ago, the first Reform Program was adopted in the Presidency of BiH, which means it was responded to the invitation of NATO to take an active part in the Membership Action Plan (MAP).
“It is known that is only possible to participate in the MAP participates in one way, and that is through the submission of annual national programs, which have the specific name in BiH – the Reform Program and that this annual national program meets very complex criteria and the standards that are set for us, ” he added.
This, as Komsic said, started the final path towards NATO membership, which means we will be submitting a new Reform Program of BiH every year, working diligently to meet all standards, until the NATO alliance assesses that BiH has met all the required criteria and standards, and invites BiH to NATO membership.
“That is why today’s military exercise with our American partners is very important since it shows that we are ready to meet some of the criteria when it comes to the interoperability of our armed forces, by participating in the most complex military actions and procedures, and that together with armed forces of other countries, we can easily fit into larger military systems. ”Immediate Response” is the best answer to those who ask different questions, but also the best indicator of the direction in which to go, and that is collective security within NATO,” he stated yesterday.
For all these reasons, the Presidency of BiH unanimously approved the participation of the AF of BiH in this exercise.
“That is why I owe you my immense gratitude, because by what you have shown in the previous days, by participating in the military exercise” Immediate Response 21 “, you have confirmed our intentions to move towards the NATO membership, and shown our American partners that our armed forces are more and more ready and trained every day to accept the obligations arising from membership in that military supranational organization. I am proud of everything we have the opportunity to see here in the Manjaca region, of everything that you, respected soldiers and officers, have shown in the past few days, proving that BiH can certainly meet the most complex criteria and standards,” he said.
Komsic noted that BiH is trying to do something similar within the framework of fulfilling the criteria and priorities that would lead us to the candidate status for the European Union (EU).
“But we are all witnesses that there are those forces, most often political ones, that put their personal interests and intentions above the interests of the citizens of BiH, and the interest of the citizens of this country is certainly turned towards NATO membership and the EU.”, Klix.ba writes.
E.Dz.
