Serbia should round off its military neutrality as soon as possible by incorporating it into its Constitution from the existing parliamentary resolution, participants of the conference “New NATO Strategy against Serbs and Russians” stated in Belgrade on Thursday.
Serbia should also address the United Nations and seek international verification of its Constitution-verified neutrality, concluded the conference hosted by the Belgrade Centre for International Relations /CRMS/.
“To avoid a quiet ending of the dangerous strategy of drawing Serbia into NATO, we believe it is necessary to alarm the public and that our state should round off its neutrality as soon as possible,” read the conclusions from the gathering.
Conference participants said that the Alliance which committed the 1999 aggression was still committing it using peace-time means.
“The goal is to subject the Serbs – this means ending the hijacking of Kosovo and Metohija from Serbia, reducing Republika Srpska to an administrative unit of Bosnia and Herzegovina and turning the regional Serbs into a disenfranchised minority,” said the participants.
Nikola Vujinovic of the Faculty of Political Sciences said that Serbia could not be safe “on its own” without security cooperation.
He stressed the misbalance in Serbia’s military cooperation with NATO and Russia in the past five years, which reflected in 44 joint missions with the Alliance and six exercises with Russia.
Vujinovic also believes that Serbia should initiate some kind of an agreement with the Collective Security Treaty Organisation /CSTO/ whose members are Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Recalling that Serbia is an observer in the organisation, he supports an agreement on closer cooperation which, as he said, would not have to be exactly like the SOFA agreement /status of forces agreement/ between Serbia and NATO.
Vujinovic, as well as Professor of International Relations Srdjan Perisic, Professor Stevica Decanski and political analyst Branko Radun agreed that Serbia must resist the attempts of silently being dragged into NATO.
Given that more than 85 percent of Serbian citizens oppose joining NATO, the Alliance has changed its strategy and is trying to distance Serbia from Russia and then bring it closer to itself, they said.
Analyst Dragomir Andjelkovic of the CRMS said NATO was leading a propaganda war against Russia and by distancing itself from Russia, Serbia would “shoot itself in both kneecaps.”
He underlined that joining NATO would be very detrimental for Serbia’s national interests and that that was why the state authorities ought to start defining state neutrality as a constitutional category.
Historiographer Radovan Kalabic says NATO is applying a new strategy to Serbia whose goal is to distance the country from Russia and points out that the greatest pressure will be directed against Republika Srpska.
Ahead of a conference “New NATO Strategy against Serbs and Russians,” Kalabic explains that within its new approach, NATO sends messages that Serbia does not have to join the Alliance but insists on the termination of good relations with Russia.
According to him, that would bring a lot of trouble to Serbia and mean that it loses its protector and friend, Russia.
“I believe that the greatest pressure will be suffered by Republika Srpska, which presents a big obstacle to NATO’s further enlargement, with its policy of military neutrality which has been made official by the National Assembly as well,” said Kalabic.
The conference is hosted by the Centre for International Relations in Belgrade.
Source: srna
