Serbian Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin reiterated on Wednesday at the annual Moscow Conference on International Security that Serbia had no intention of joining NATO, even if it was the last European country to remain outside of the alliance
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th April, 2019) Serbian Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin reiterated on Wednesday at the annual Moscow Conference on International Security that Serbia had no intention of joining NATO, even if it was the last European country to remain outside of the alliance.
Vulin last expressed Serbia's position on the matter in late March at an international conference in Belgrade that commemorated the 20th anniversary of the NATO bombing of former Yugoslavia (now Serbia and Montenegro) in which thousands of people were killed.
"Perhaps we will be the last country in Europe which will not join NATO. On the one part, because we were bombed by NATO forces. And secondly, we will not do harm which was done against us," Vulin said at the conference in Moscow which started on Tuesday and will continue through Thursday.
In 1999, the armed confrontation between the Kosovo Liberation Army, an ethnic-Albanian militia, which had supported Kosovo's independence since the 1990s, and the Serbian army and police led to NATO airstrikes against former Yugoslavia. NATO's operations ran from March 24 to June 10, 1999. The Serbian government estimates that about 2,500 people, including 89 children, were killed during the US-led bombing campaign.
The military operation was conducted without the approval of the UN Security Council and on the basis of the West's allegations that the Yugoslavian government had carried out ethnic cleansing against Albanians. It remains a controversial subject between Albanians, who see NATO's interference as a protective measure, and Serbs, who condemn the operation for killing civilians.
