

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg attending the Belgrade Security Forum event in Belgrade, Serbia, 8 October 2018. Photo: EPA-EFE/ANDREJ CUKIC.

The head of the Serbian delegation to the NATO assembly, Dragan Sormaz, has denied reports that adoption of a new Individual Partnership Action Plan, IPAP, with the Atlantic alliance has been delayed due to a lack of political will – and said the new plan involves cooperation at a higher level.

“The programme has been approved by both Serbia and NATO and it is expected that the Serbian government will soon put it on the agenda,” Sormaz told BIRN.

He added that adoption of the second IPAP is proceeding faster than the first one when, according to him, Albania held it up for two years.

Serbia’s parliament declared the country militarily neutral in 2007, shortly before the then province of Kosovo declared independence in February 2008 with the backing of the major Western powers.

But that has not stopped Serbia from being part of NATO’s Partnership for Peace programme and concluding an IPAP with the alliance in 2015 for a period of two years.

A news website with a focus on the EU, European Western Balkans, on October 28 wrote that adoption of the new IPAP with NATO was being delayed by lack of political will.

In a reply to BIRN, a NATO official said that questions about procedures relating to Serbia’s partnership plan should be addressed to the Serbian authorities.

But NATO also recalled its good cooperation with Serbia. “NATO has deepened its political dialogue and cooperation with Serbia on issues of common interest, with an important focus on support for democratic, institutional and defence reforms. At the same time, NATO fully respects Serbia’s neutrality,” it said.

This practical cooperation, NATO added, had included Serbia hosting NATO’s annual civil emergency and disaster response exercise in 2018. Serbia has also worked with NATO to train Iraqi military medics.

According to Sormaz, an MP from the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, SNS, the new IPAP will further upgrade cooperation with NATO.

He said he expected Serbia to host a joint military exercise with NATO soldiers every year. “The political will exists because it is in Serbia’s interest,” Sormaz concluded.

Membership of NATO remains deeply unpopular in Serbia, almost two decades after the alliance waged an 11-week air war against then rump Yugoslavia to halt the killing and expulsion of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo.

NATO bombs struck buildings, bridges and other infrastructure in Belgrade and elsewhere in Serbia.

In an opinion poll published late last year by the Belgrade-based Centre for Free Elections and Democracy, 60 per cent of those polled said they supported Serbia’s doctrine of military neutrality – and only 7 per cent favoured closer relations with the United States and NATO.