Bosnia and Herzegovina’s stability is crucially important to Croatia, which is a true advocate of its Euro-Atlantic path, Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlić Radman said in Brussels on Tuesday, at the meeting of NATO foreign ministers. One of the topics is the situation was the Western Balkans.
“We are true advocates of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Euro-Atlantic path. The stability of our immediate neighbour is of crucial importance,” Grlić Radman said before the meeting.
Croatia is assisting BiH both bilaterally and within NATO and has provided €500,000 in assistance as part of a package aimed at strengthening BiH’s defence capacity, he added.
The minister called on Serbia and Kosovo to return to dialogue and told Serbia that any attempt to destabilise its neighbour was unacceptable.
Stoltenberg: Western Balkans is important for all
“Rest assured, NATO will do what is necessary to sustain or to ensure stability in the region because this is important not only for the Western Balkans but for the whole of Europe and NATO,” Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said before the meeting. Last week, he toured the Western Balkans.
He warned of increasing tensions in the region in recent weeks, mentioning inflammatory rhetoric in BiH, serious incidents of violence in Kosovo, including attacks on NATO peacekeepers, and an armed attack by a Serb paramilitary group in the village of Banjska in September in which three persons were killed. Those are serious incidents and we must stay focused on the Western Balkans while also dealing with the war in Gaza and continuing to support Ukraine, Stoltenberg said.
“We will work closely with the partners, with allies in the region to ensure that we do what is possible to reduce tensions and prevent a further escalation of the conflict,” he added.
