The Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic signed an agreement on diplomatic immunity for the NATO representatives and logistic support in the territory of the Republic.
At the same time, there exists a parliamentary resolution of 2007 on the Serbia's neutrality regarding military alliances.
Yelena Guskova, Head of the Centre for the Study of the Contemporary Balkan Crisis at the Russian Academy of Sciences told Pravda.Ru to what extent the signed agreement corresponds with the neutrality.
''This document allows the NATO members to obtain support of the Serbian authorities on transportation, technical aid, and provision of the NATO military with goods and services. While these are Serbian authorities who bear all the costs, and NATO is absolved of all responsibility for damaging Serbia, including death of the civilians,'' the expert pointed out.
It is not the first agreement the country's authorities have signed. Negotiations with the NATO were started just after Slobodan Milosevic had been dethroned in 2000. First of all, they agreed upon the usage of airports, sea bays, roads and railroads, information and communication systems. The agreement was signed secretly by the Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic in 2005. In 2006 the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian government signed 3 agreements with the US.
Interesting enough that people learnt about it with a great delay. They would not have supported it.
When WikiLeaks documents were released, it became clear that the country's authorities had held secret talks with the US diplomats on the rapprochement with the NATO.
The current authorities continue the same policy and signed yet another cooperation agreement with the NATO in January 2015.
People were informed of it after about a week.
Today, the PM, the President, and the Foreign Minster cannot think out reasons for it.
They also play a military cooperation with Russia. But they follow the way of rapprochement with the NATO. The Serbs ask to carry out a referendum, but this demand has not become a national one,'' the expert concluded.
Pravda.Ru
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