Serbs Protest Over NATO Summit in Belgrade

Anti-NATO NGOs and opposition parties are getting ready to stage protests against the international military summit being held in Belgrade from June 13-15 and which will gather some 180 representatives of defence systems worldwide.

Serbia's Army Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Miloje Miletic, will open the conference whose main topics are international military cooperation, ensuring access to shared global resources and developing partnerships.

Serbia became a member of NATO's Partnership for Peace, PfP, programme in December 2006, after signing a cooperation agreement with NATO in which democratic, institutional and defence reforms were key.

Prior to becoming a formal member of NATO, Serbia has engaged in limited security and defence reform cooperation with the Alliance, while military officers and civilians have participated in various PfP activities.

But whether Serbia will ever join the Alliance remains a moot point. In April 2009, Serbia unveiled drafts of national security and defence strategies in which it maintained its doctrine of military neutrality.

And ever since NATO bombed Serbia in 1999 over the conflict in Kosovo, the issue of NATO membership has been politically sensitive.

Reflecting continued anger over the conflict with NATO, a group of 200 academics, writers and journalists opposed to membership of NATO launched an initiative last year for a referendum to be held on the issue.

The NATO issue has not been Serbian priority in recent months as the country focuses on EU reforms, the arrest of war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic as well as on talks with Kosovo.

But most Serbs are still against membership. According to the latest research, only 20 per cent of Serbs would support NATO accession.

Meanwhile, the Center for Strategic Alternatives along with the opposition Democratic Party of Serbia and some NGOs are preparing an anti-NATO protest next week as well as staging round tables against Serbia's NATO membership.

Aleksandar Mitic, head of the Center for Strategic Alternatives, said it was shameful for Serbia to host a NATO summit only 12 years after the Alliance bombed the country.

"The aim of the campaign is to express our dissagrement with Serbia's NATO membership as well as with the politics of [Serbian President Boris] Tadic and Defence Minister [Dragan] Sutanovac who are taking Serbia into NATO step by step," Mitic told Balkan Insight.