Minister Vucinic at the SouthEastern Europe Defence Ministerial Meeting (SEDM)

Minister of Defence Boro Vucinic attended the SouthEastern Europe Defence Ministerial Meeting (SEDM) in Antalya, Turkey, at the invitation of Minister of National Defence of the Republic of Turkey, Ismet Yilmaz.

In their presentations, the defence ministers emphasized the importance of SEDM, stressing that the cooperation within this initiative builds the capacity of the individual countries, which are required for NATO and EU membership. This is supported by the fact that a number of countries that were not NATO and EU members at the time that SEDM was founded, now are their full members.

Also, they consider that this type of cooperation is particularly important for small countries, because the application of the "pooling and sharing" concept can achieve significant savings in national capacities.

Minister Vucinic in his address said that cooperation between countries in this part of Europe is necessary and that we must make our utmost so that this cooperation would deepen even further in order to better use the national capacities.

"This is a time when we must act swiftly, and our common future steps should contribute to the development and progress of SEDM, and all other regional organizations. We must do everything in our power, with available resources, to improve further coordination of all regional security initiatives.

We have built a constructive relationship in the Southeast Europe and we must act with join forces to maintain and further improve such relationships, in order to ensure peace and conditions for the development of the region" Minister Vucinic said in his address.

After the official part of the meeting, Minister Vucinic had a series of bilateral meetings with Ismet Yilmaz, Minister of Defence of the Republic of Turkey, Celeste Wallander, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State; Fatmir Besimi, Minister of Defence of the Republic of Macedonia, and Anyu Angelov, Minister of Defence of the Republic of Bulgaria.

Ambassador of Montenegro to the Republic of Turkey Ramo Bralic was also in the delegation of Montenegro.