NATO holds first post-war joint army training program for Bosnians

SARAJEVO (AFP) Jul 22, 2003
NATO-led peacekeepers said Tuesday they had brought together army officers from Bosnia's Serb, Muslim and Croat communities for the first joint training program since the war that pitted the three ethnic communities against each other.

The program, organized in early July in the southern city of Mostar, brought together 165 officers from the armies of the two entities that make up Bosnia -- the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Serb-run Republika Srpska.

James Billings, spokesman for the NATO-led Stabilisation Force (SFOR), told a press conference that the program had "paved the way for further cooperation in the field of joint military training."

Bosnia's two entities which were formed after the 1992-1995 war each have their own army under separate chains of command.

NATO has demanded the establishment of a common command and control system for the armed forces of the two entities as a requirement for Bosnia to join the alliance's Partnership for Peace program.

Membership of the program is generally considered a precursor to membership of NATO.

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