| Defense chief: Army on unusually high alert |
| 16 November 2007 | 15:54
| Source:
B92, Beta |
BELGRADE --
Defense Minister Dragan Šutanovac says the Serbian Army is in a state of unusually high alert in the south.
 | Šutanovac shows new license plates to be used on military vehicles (Beta)
|
Šutanovac was speaking in a news conference in Belgrade Friday to present the results of his ministry's six months in office, when he said that the Army, Serbian police (MUP), and MUP's most elite unit, the Gendarmerie, will not allow the south of Serbia to become unstable.
These forces stationed in the region near the administrative boundary with Kosovo have "for a while now" been in a state of combat readiness that is "not usual, rather higher than usual," he explained.
The minister said that in his meetings with KFOR representatives he insisted that the international peacekeepers must stop any attempt to destabilize Kosovo, and that he received "serious guarantees there was determination to maintain peace."
Šutanovac said that Serbia's participation in NATO's outreach program Partnership for Peace provided for a wide space for cooperation, but that the decision on whether the country will join the Alliance or remain neutral is "still a long way away".
He also told reporters that the VS military police had, in the past six months, checked 104 army facilities in order to make sure none of the Hague fugitives were hiding there.
The inspections came on his orders, the minister said, with the goal of demonstrating that the Serbian Army was not harboring war crimes suspects.
Šutanovac added that the past six months saw "a good deal done" at the Ministry of Defense, to benefit not only the military, but also Serbia as a whole, while the most positive appraisal came from the European Commission, whose report recently said there was progress in subordinating the VS to civilian control.
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