Address

by H.E. Selmo Cikotic
Minister of Defense of Bosnia and Herzegovina
at the meeting of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council
in Defence Ministers Session

Secretary General,
Your Excellencies - Defense Ministers,
Dear Officers,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am very grateful for the opportunity to address you today. It is really a privilege, as this is my first visit to NATO HQ in the capacity of Defense Minister.

Indeed, strengthening our relations with NATO and effectively utilizing all available PfP tools have the highest priority on my agenda. Needless to say, our final goal is full integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina into the Alliance.

Although Bosnia-Herzegovina has only a few months of full participation in PfP, our experience with it so far is very positive. It offers challenging opportunities and makes our efforts fruitful and worth-while. As to our tangible achievements so far, I may emphasize the following:

• we submitted our Presentation document to NATO in December last year
• we signed the Security Agreement with NATO
• we compiled our first PARP Survey, which is now being examined by NATO
• we developed our first Individual Partnership Program (IPP), now being reviewed by NATO
• we are striving towards the PfP SOFA Agreement
• we are about to establish our Mission to NATO, which will be lead by my predecessor, Ambassador Nikola Radovanovic
• after initial difficulties and delays, we are now finally firm on track with the NATO Trust Fund project
• we plan on enrolling in IPAP¹as soon as we can, as this serves our top-priority    task   of   approaching   the   Alliance    as    quickly    and efficiently as possible
• we  are  implementing  the  Presidential  Decision  that  outlines  the envisaged new structure of our Armed Forces, their size, positioning, equipping, etc.
• we are finalizing the process of establishing of a single Command and Control System over the Armed Forces.

These are just the main components of our everyday efforts. There is still a whole series of huge steps to be made. And as you may imagine, tasks never come along without the accompanying problems, which in our case are:

We are short of funds in the budget this year!

Our #2 problem is a more serious one. It is the unresolved status of state property. Namely, we cannot make the entities agree to transfer the jurisdiction and ownership rights to the state-level. This brings us to a stalemate position and blocks almost all future reforming efforts. How can we re-position troops to barracks that don't belong to us? Or how do we destroy the surplus of weapons and ammunition, if none of it is our property? The list is endless.

Notwithstanding previously mentioned problems, another positive issue could be add to the list of our achievements. The 5th rotation of our EOD unit in Iraq continues to accomplish remarkable results. A number of our officers take part as observers in different UN missions. We deem that acquired experience will help us in initiating talks and taking decisions on our future participation in NATO led operations.

In conclusion, I will say that we remain strongly committed to the reforming process, and to Euro-Atlantic integrations, in spite of all obstacles.

I tried to be brief, respecting other topics that will require your attention today. Let us all focus on the burning issues. I am happy to say that Bosnia is no longer one of them.

Thank you.