Jan 4, 2024. Posted by Balkan Periscope - Hellas
The news agency quoted the ministry’s statement that the proposal for service of up to four months is made “in order to increase the defense capabilities of the Serbian Armed Forces, through the rejuvenation and improvement in the training of the active and reserve forces.”
Serbia
suspended mandatory military service in 2011 amid the push to professionalize
the armed forces, but the country now appears close to bringing back the draft
after a long campaign in favor of it, despite concerns that the government may
struggle to foot the bill for such a massive recruitment, reported the AP.
Tensions
have been high in the Balkans that went through bloody breakup of the former
Yugoslavia in the 1990s, said the AP, adding that the tensions have revolved
primarily around “Serbia’s former province of Kosovo which declared
independence in 2008, something that Serbia and allies Russia and China do not
recognize.”
Although
formally neutral, the Serbian army has maintained close ties to Russia from
where it has been purchasing most of its arms, including fighter jets and
tanks, reported the American news agency.
It added
that Serbia has also maintained cordial relations with NATO whose peacekeeping
troops have been stationed in Kosovo since 1999 “when the Western military
alliance intervened to stop Belgrade’s bloody crackdown against Kosovo Albanian
separatists.”
Another
volatile region is Bosnia “where a Bosnian Serb separatist leader (Republika
Srpska President Milorad Dodik) has been threatening to declare the
Serb-controlled half of Bosnia independent and to unite it with neighboring
Serbia,” reported the AP.
--