The US Department of Defense will perform an assessment of the cooperation of all the Western Balkans countries, including BiH, with the US and the Russian Federation in the field of Defense, together with the State Department and on the order of the US Congress. This assessment will take place next year and the report will be submitted to the competent commissions of this US legislative body.
The report, according to in the federal law that specifies the budget and defense plans for the US in 2018, will also contain detailed information on military cooperation between BiH, Serbia, Kosovo and Macedonia with Russia. The law came into force last week, and the text was published on the website of the US Congress.
“The report must contain the assessment of security cooperation of all Western Balkan countries with Russia, including the list of weapons, defense systems and military technology that is worth a million or more USD, which was received or purchased by any Western Balkan country from 2012. Description of participation of military units in trainings and exercises with Russia in the same period will be requested, as well as the description of the agreement on cooperation that these countries signed with Russia,” according to the new US law.
Moreover, the US Government will have to introduce the Congress with the assessment of the “intelligence cooperation of the Western Balkans countries with Russia” and the consequences of that kind of cooperation on the interests of the United States and NATO, the regional countries and the countries that are bordering with the Western Balkans.
Furthermore, they will request the same assessment and information on cooperation with the US, together with a description of the activities of these four countries in NATO programs, in particular the Partnership for Peace.
The document that the US Department of Defense and the State Department will submit to the committees of the Congress will, as noted, be public, but it might contain parts that will not be available to the public. Moreover, in the document are extensively discussed the response programs to the “threat of the Russian Federation” to the interests of the US all around the world.
(Source: klix.ba)
