Sarajevo's Mayor and the US-based Marshall Legacy Institute (MLI) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Wednesday which entails a project that should rid the city of all landmines by the year 2020.

The Memorandum was signed in Washington by Sarajevo’s Mayor Abdulah Skaka and retired US Army General and MLI founder Gordon R. Sullivan, who was accompanied by MLI Executive Director Perry F. Baltimore III.

“Our goal is a Sarajevo without landmines by 2020 and I am convinced that we will accomplish this in cooperation with MLI,” Skaka said about the Memorandum.

The reputable MLI has been helping Bosnia’s efforts in landmine clearance for the past 20 years.

The city of Sarajevo is rapidly developing, “and we need to complete processes which we inherited from past times,” the Mayor said, adding that stability and security are “the basis for economic development and betterment in every sense.”

He said that great progress was made in ridding the country of the danger of landmines, most of all thanks to the international demining community, “especially the generous aid from the Government of the United States and the US State Department Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement.”

The Memorandum also defines cooperation between Sarajevo and surrounding municipalities regarding demining projects.

The Marshall Legacy Institute has throughout the past years donated several dozen mine detection dogs to local demining organisations. Many landmine victims across the country have also received aid through the MLI’s Children Against Mines Program (CHAMPS), Sarajevo’s City Administration said.