NATO headquarters in Sarajevo held a briefing Wednesday on the role of the Alliance and its mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“For the past nine years, Bosnia has been working in a structured and meaningful partnership with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in order to fulfil our foreign policy goals, which is to bring BiH closer to NATO,” the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Chairman of the BiH-NATO Cooperation Commission, Josip Brkic, said after the NATO Headquarters Sarajevo briefing.

Apart from Brkic, the briefing was attended by the commander of the NATO Headquarters in Sarajevo, Brigadier General Pamela McGaha, and the ambassadors to BiH of Germany Thomas Fitschen, Great Britain Julian Reilly and Norway Olav Reinertsen.

Brigadier General Pamela McGaha emphasized that cooperation between BiH and NATO brings real and genuine benefits to all citizens. She noted that the Norwegian Embassy serves as a point of contact between NATO and BiH and that Germany and Great Britain have a long tradition of supporting the citizens of BiH and their defence and security institutions.

“The fundamental thing here is that BiH and NATO are partners. Josip Brkic served as the Chair of the Commission for Cooperation with NATO, which managed NATO's priorities in BiH. The NATO team in Sarajevo has been working with the Ministries of Defense and Security for the past 20 years to help build a security network that the citizens of BiH can trust,” McGaha said.

Journalists also asked the brigadier to evaluate the presence of pro-Russian influence in the country, but also how much yesterday's visit of the Republika Srpska (RS) entity President, Milorad Dodik, to the Russian President could harm BiH?

“It’s clear that there are several external actors who want to block the process in BiH, as well as in other countries in the Western Balkans. These actors are actively undermining state governments in order to weaken the security of institutions and citizens. This is precisely why the Alliance promised additional assistance to BiH, in order to strengthen its security network. We believe that the security foundations will strengthen both investment and development,” McGaha said.