The announcement of the visit of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to Bosnia and Herzegovina, although it has not yet been confirmed, is another confirmation that he is really carefully monitoring the situation in the Western Balkans, especially in BiH, said today in Sarajevo the Norwegian Ambassador to BiH Olav Reinertsen, whose country contact point of NATO in our country.
Speaking at the opening of the two-day conference on NATO’s security challenges, which the Norwegian embassy organized together with the Atlantic Initiative, he announced that “absolutely everything” will be discussed in the next two days.
“They will discuss the security situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also the security situation on our continent, especially after the brutal Russian invasion and aggression against Ukraine,” he said.
Regarding the security of the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, he said that NATO is currently focused on the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and this also applies to all allies.
He reminded that last year NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg defined which countries deserve special attention. Together with BiH, it defined Georgia and Moldova, especially after the brutal Russian aggression.
Asked about the announcement of a possible visit by Stoltenberg, also a Norwegian, to Bosnia and Herzegovina this month, Reinertsen said that the NATO Secretary General is really closely monitoring the situation in the Western Balkans, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“I see that there are some announcements about his visit. This has not been definitively confirmed, but I also know that he shows great interest in visiting Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is ultimately a member of the Partnership for Peace program. But I think that such an announcement is another confirmation of his and NATO’s commitment to Bosnia and Herzegovina,” he said.
President of the Atlantic Initiative, Edina Bećirović, announced that the results of the research conducted by the Atlantic Initiative will be presented today for the first time.
“It is interesting that the findings of those studies largely do not coincide with the political discourse. At the political level, the discourse is clearly intertwined with various conflicts. In public discourse, those who speak about NATO speak as if they were speaking on behalf of everyone in Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, our research told a different story and we see room for dialogue in that,” she said.
Sead Turčalo, vice president of the Atlantic Initiative, added that the research was conducted on a representative sample in all of BiH and the results do not reflect the attitude that someone is against NATO in advance, that NATO cannot be discussed…
So, for example, when asked whether their strategic choice would be Russia and China or NATO, half of the respondents from Republika Srpska opted for NATO or were undecided about that choice, which is the opposite of the dominant perception, Fena reports.
