The army’s Strategic Committee for Munitions, Mines and Explosive Devices meets in Sarajevo. Photo: Anadolu.

The new laboratory, the fourth of its kind in the country, is scheduled to open next month as Bosnia continues efforts to destroy old and dangerous munitions as part of the conditions imposed by NATO to activate its membership action plan for the Western military alliance.

A total of 8.3 tons of old munitions and mine-explosive devices, known as MIMES, should be destroyed by the end of 2020 as one of the conditions for the membership action plan.

Most of them are 25 years old or older, according to data from the Armed Forces of Bosnia.

Most date back to the 1992-95 war, but the age of some of them cannot be established, the army says.

The German embassy in Sarajevo gave Bosnia 200,000 euros to fund the destruction of the old ammunition stocks.

“This year, the money will be primarily used for the destruction of anti-tank missiles. There are still about 8,000 tons of old, dangerous ammunition, which must be destroyed as soon as possible,” the German ambassador to Sarajevo, Christiane Hohmann, said in a statement on Monday.

The ammunition will be destroyed under the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP’s ‘EXPLODE+’ project, which has been disposing of old, dangerous weapons and ammunition in cooperation with the Bosnian army since 2013.

In 2006, Bosnia had 38 tons of munitions and mine-explosive devices. It now has a total of 15 tons, some 7.5 tons of which are for the army’s operational needs.

At its last meeting earlier in June in Sarajevo, the army’s Strategic Committee for Munitions, Mines and Explosive Devices concluded that plans to destroy outdated munitions, which are supported by the OSCE, the EU, the UNDP, NATO headquarters in Sarajevo and many foreign embassies, will contribute to creating a safer environment.

“The OSCE Mission is working on improving the infrastructure and security conditions of armaments and MIMES storage which will result in the greater security of the Armed Forces of Bosnia personnel and the citizens of Bosnia, especially those living near the munitions warehouses,” the head of the OSCE mission to Bosnia, Bruce Berton, told media after the meeting.

At the meeting, it was stressed that accidents in munitions warehouses could affect the security situation not only in Bosnia but in other countries in the region too.