The Republika Srpska (RS) entity Government concluded that members of the RS Civil Protection Agency participating in the international exercise “Serbia 2018” must not wear the symbols of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“Members of the (Civil Protection Agency) units are obliged to wear symbols of the RS entity on their uniforms during the implementation of operative activities, without the symbols of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the camps where RS teams will be situated will have the fly the RS flag,” reads the RS Government’s conclusion, among other things. The Government had also provided BAM 10,000 for this exercise.

The exercise which will be held in October this year is jointly organised by the Ministry of the Interior – the Emergency Situations Department of Serbia and the Euro-Atlantic Emergency Response Coordination Center, which is NATO’s main mechanism for providing assistance to civilians during natural disasters.

The International Field Exercise “Serbia 2018” will be held in the October 8 – 11, 2018 in the territory of the municipalities of Mladenovac and Arandjelovac, where around 30 teams from 26 countries are expected to take part.

On the other hand, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) entity Civil Protection Agency said that their 34 members will wear state symbols during this exercise.

“These are the teams of Bosnia and Herzegovina, this is not some entity exercise. Bosnia is participating in this exercise and Bosnian flag must be present there. If they want to be part of international teams, they have to represent the country they are coming from. The FBiH Civil Protection Agency’s uniforms have the FBiH symbols on one shoulder, and Bosnian symbols on the other. That’s how all the countries in the world are defined. We’ll see what the NATO’s position will be,” Fahrudin Solak, General Manager of the FBiH Civil Protection Agency.