US seeks military base in Serbia | 11:13 August 12 | B92
BELGRADE -- Friday – The US is seeking an agreement to base troops in Serbia-Montenegro. The draft agreement was presented yesterday by US Ambassador Michael Polt under the guise of “an agreement on security cooperation”.
The draft deal sets out details of the rights of US troops who would be stationed in Serbia-Montenegro. In return the US is dangling the carrot of membership in NATO Lite, the Alliance’s Partnership for Peace program. The other condition for membership of the program is the extradition of Hague Tribunal defendant Ratko Mladic.
Polt yesterday described signing of the agreement as an obligatory first step to membership. The full deal includes three agreements. The first, already signed, establishes lines of communication for the US to move troops across Serbia-Montenegro in the case of an emergency in Kosovo. The second is the agreement on the status of US troops stationed in Serbia-Montenegro for training or assistance to missions in the country, and the third is the agreement on security cooperation which relates to assistance which the US, as a NATO member, will offer to Serbia-Montenegro for military development,” he said.
“The United States and NATO want to see unity in all of Europe, freedom and peace, and in that sense it is in the Alliance’s interests to see Serbia-Montenegro as soon as possible, first in the Partnership for Peace and then in NATO. Serbia-Montenegro will also have multiple benefits form international cooperation. Apart from the resources that will be invested into modernisation of the army, reform and training of the army, which could be as much as eighty million dollars, signing the agreements is a basis for obtaining assistance for the democratisation of society as a whole, civilian control of the army and greater effectiveness of defence and security,” said Polt
http://www.b92.net/english/news/index.php?order=priority
BELGRADE -- Friday – The US is seeking an agreement to base troops in Serbia-Montenegro. The draft agreement was presented yesterday by US Ambassador Michael Polt under the guise of “an agreement on security cooperation”.
The draft deal sets out details of the rights of US troops who would be stationed in Serbia-Montenegro. In return the US is dangling the carrot of membership in NATO Lite, the Alliance’s Partnership for Peace program. The other condition for membership of the program is the extradition of Hague Tribunal defendant Ratko Mladic.
Polt yesterday described signing of the agreement as an obligatory first step to membership. The full deal includes three agreements. The first, already signed, establishes lines of communication for the US to move troops across Serbia-Montenegro in the case of an emergency in Kosovo. The second is the agreement on the status of US troops stationed in Serbia-Montenegro for training or assistance to missions in the country, and the third is the agreement on security cooperation which relates to assistance which the US, as a NATO member, will offer to Serbia-Montenegro for military development,” he said.
“The United States and NATO want to see unity in all of Europe, freedom and peace, and in that sense it is in the Alliance’s interests to see Serbia-Montenegro as soon as possible, first in the Partnership for Peace and then in NATO. Serbia-Montenegro will also have multiple benefits form international cooperation. Apart from the resources that will be invested into modernisation of the army, reform and training of the army, which could be as much as eighty million dollars, signing the agreements is a basis for obtaining assistance for the democratisation of society as a whole, civilian control of the army and greater effectiveness of defence and security,” said Polt
http://www.b92.net/english/news/index.php?order=priority