Vucic: US Adds $5.1 Million for Mine Clearance

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said today, during a visit to the Innovation and Education Park of the Serbian Mine Action Center in Velika Mostanica, that the Strategic Dialogue between Belgrade and the United States marks a turning point. Vucic attended a demonstration of deminers’ work, and the visit was prompted by the announcement of a new US donation for the removal of unexploded ordnance.

Aleksandar Titolo, Charge d’Affaires of the US Embassy in Belgrade, announced that the United States will provide an additional $5.1 million for the destruction of conventional weapons and the clearance of land contaminated by mines, bringing total US assistance to Serbia in this field to more than $34 million, of which over $29 million has so far gone toward removing leftover ordnance.

“For us, the Strategic Dialogue with the United States is a turning point,” Vucic said, thanking Titolo and the US government for the donation. The president added that relations between Belgrade and Washington are entering a new period.

“After difficult years, in ‘99 and in 2008, we are now entering a time of building a new era,” Vucic said, adding that Serbia and the United States still have a lot of work ahead of them, but that relations between the two countries are on the right track.

“Anyone who believes we need a future with worse relations with the United States does not deserve to lead this country,” the president said.

Warning Over Northern Kosovo

Part of his address, Vucic devoted to the security of Serbs in northern Kosovo and Metohija, continuing a theme he had raised earlier regarding the bridge on the Ibar. The president said Belgrade’s approach to Kosovo differs from Washington’s.

“Our approach to Kosovo differs from that of the United States, but I am grateful they prevented tensions,” Vucic said, adding that in recent months the American side had done everything it could to prevent further escalation in the north of the province.

“This is a matter of people’s security, people’s lives, their survival in the north,” Vucic said.

The president announced that if the situation in northern Kosovo does not improve, he will seek talks at every level in Washington.

“But if things do not go well, I will be ready to request talks at all levels in the United States, so that, as much as possible, I can help improve the safety and security of our people in the north of Kosovo and Metohija,” Vucic said.

He added that he does not know whether the European Union will get involved as well, but that if it does not, he will turn to those who have the greatest influence over Pristina.

Kopaonik Cleared, Bujanovac Is the Priority

Vucic was welcomed in Velika Mostanica by Mine Action Center director Bojan Glamoclija, Titolo, ITF director for Serbia Tomaz Lovrencic, and Rakovica municipality president Milos Simic. The president noted that Kopaonik has been fully cleared of leftover ordnance, while the Bujanovac area still awaits the same.

“It is important that Kopaonik has been cleared, and we must fully clear Bujanovac as well,” Vucic said.

Glamoclija explained that in the Bujanovac area, mines were laid by terrorist organizations in clusters rather than in classic minefields, which makes their locations especially difficult to determine.

“It is very difficult to determine where these mines are now, which is why we had to organize a mixed team,” Glamoclija said, adding that the Center is now receiving better information about their locations.

The Center’s director also showed Vucic a deep locator, a US donation that scans land to a depth of six meters and records the exact position, volume and depth of every object it finds. According to him, the Center expects two more passive and two more active devices of the same kind through the new donation.

According to figures presented by Glamoclija, cooperation with the United States through the International Trust Fund for Demining (ITF) has produced 80 contracted projects, of which 77 have been completed, two are underway, and one is planned for October. These projects have cleared more than 13 million square meters of land and found and destroyed 5,347 explosive devices. Since the Center was founded in 2002, its work has removed more than 54,000 mines and war remnants from over 64 million square meters of Serbian territory.

Titolo said that since July, when the clearance project in the Rakovica municipality began, more than 490 pieces of unexploded ordnance have been found and removed there. As of March this year, according to official US State Department figures, more than 18 million square meters of Serbian territory remained potentially contaminated.

According to the Center’s presentation, land currently contaminated with unexploded ordnance is located in the following areas:

• Rakovica
• Paracin
• Kraljevo
• Kragujevac
• Vranje
• Leskovac
• Novi Pazar

Bujanovac, it was noted, is a particular priority because new surveying has uncovered an additional area suspected of containing mines, while Kopaonik, according to the president and the Center’s data, has already been fully cleared.

Vucic also said that the Mine Action Center now employs 22 people, compared with just four a few years ago. “The Center used to exist merely as a kind of link between foreign governments, the ITF and private companies carrying out demining. Today it is becoming an increasingly serious institution,” the president said, adding that it is gaining growing recognition abroad.

Closing his remarks, Vucic said the Serbian Orthodox Church University will have the full support of the state, responding to criticism the project has received from some political opponents.

The next step in the cooperation between the Center and Washington is the already underway project in Rakovica, while a new one, the fifth in a row funded with US money, is planned for October.