NATO did not set BiH Defence Review as a condition for MAP, only registration of property to the state

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, during talks with BiH Presidency member Bakir Izetbegović earlier this month in Brussels, emphasized that NATO is ready to activate the MAP once BiH completes the process of registering prospective military locations to the state of BiH, writes Patria.

-This process will take years. Not only because of the fact that the RS is saying that they will never support the registration of prospective military property to the state, which is owned by the RS, but also because of the fact that there are numerous unresolved property-legal relations and paperwork. It is now clear that we will not get the green light for the MAP at the ministerial meeting in December, Denis Hadžović, Secretary General of the Center for Security Studies, told Patria.

He reminds that three conditions were set for BiH six years ago at the NATO Summit in Tallinn, the fulfillment of which will activate the MAP and the start of membership talks with NATO: the destruction of explosive materials and the destruction of movable military property, the designation of a contingent of BiH soldiers to be sent to the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, and the registration of prospective locations to the state of BiH.

-The BiH Defence Review as a document is not a condition for the MAP, nor has NATO or anyone else set deadlines for its adoption. The deadline for adoption was set by the BiH Presidency.

For years, political consensus on the BiH Defence Review has not been reached, and whether it will be adopted by the end of this month as announced by the state Presidency remains to be seen. The decision is now up to the three members who will declare whether they support the BiH Defence Review that was sent to them from the BiH Ministry of Defence, Hadžović explains.

Since 2010, when work on the BiH Defence Review began, numerous obstacles have arisen, from the number of soldiers, locations, to demands for demilitarization.