The Minister of Defense, Radmila Sekerinska, is participating in the first physical ministerial meeting of the NATO Alliance these two days, and one of the main topics is Afghanistan, said the MIA correspondent from Brussels.
In a statement to MIA, Sekerinska explained that the Alliance’s defense ministers will discuss today the future of Afghanistan, but also the lessons to be learned from this two-decade mission after US forces left and the Taliban returned to power, Sloboden Pecat writes.
Asked whether she believes NATO members should accept the Taliban as a legitimate interlocutor, Sekerinska said it was up to them to prove themselves.
– These are topics that will be opened in the next period. In practice, the current government of Afghanistan will have to show itself what it stands for, how it plans to govern the country, and depending on their engagement, depending on their actions will be the response of the international community. They will not receive carte blanche, said the Minister of Defense.
For the Sekerinska Alliance, it has proved successful in tackling the reason it entered Afghanistan: preventing the risks of terrorist attacks in member states.
– Indeed, in that period that counter-terrorist activity succeeded and brought results. The question is whether we have properly formulated the following goals in Afghanistan, whether they were realistic, whether it is possible to achieve them only by military or mostly military measures. Additionally, I think it is important to talk about the decision to leave, but also about the fact that in the past NATO managed to evacuate more than 130 thousand citizens of Afghanistan who helped the Alliance and were assisted, who participated for 20 years in support of our armed forces, the minister said, noting that in a short period of time, 130 Afghans were safely deployed in some of the NATO member states.
She adds that now the process of resolving the status of these people is underway, a process in which Northern Macedonia also participates.
– The Republic of Northern Macedonia in those moments showed that it is an ally that NATO can rely on. Even today we have a number of Afghan citizens who are accommodated in our country as a kind of transit to some of the other member states who have offered a complete package. We offered and provided medical support to some of those who are accommodated in Kosovo, all in order to be of help to the people who helped our soldiers and officers, said Sekerinska.
It is also a novelty that Northern Macedonia from next summer will join the mission “Enhanced Advanced Presence” which is stationed in the Baltic countries on the border with Russia.
– It is one of the missions carried out by NATO, presence in a significant number of military capabilities that are distributed in the area of the Baltic states. We thought it was a good chance for our armed forces to show that they are contributing, but it is, believe me, a great chance for them to exercise and develop the capacity for interoperability with NATO member states. So we expect the participation to be realized from June 2022 as part of the Slovenian contingent, and under the contingent of Canada, explains the Minister of Defense.
This, for the government in Northern Macedonia is considered a chance for greater cooperation with Canada which manages that part of this mission, as well as with Slovenia and Latvia where the forces are stationed, but also with Montenegro which is also part.
– We will provide rotations of different units that will change and that will mean that in one period we will offer one capacity, the Montenegrins will complement it, and the Slovenes will be the ones who coordinate this trilateral cooperation. It is good for our bilateral relations with all these countries and it is good for us as a new ally to put the Macedonian flag in several locations. “This mission of the Alliance is one of the operations that define NATO’s position, that it is ready to be present in all allies, especially on its eastern borders,” Sekerinska said.
NATO defense ministers will also address a session on global geopolitical challenges.
– Setting up NATO with its policy of deterrence, which means greater cohesion, greater NATO presence and appropriate policies that we need to formulate in anticipation of the Madrid summit to be held next year. Practically, this is the work we started with after the last summit and in the direction of the NATO2030 document. All topics that were relevant then are now even more relevant, said Minister Sekerinska.
Source: MIA
