NATO Secretary-General urges BiH to resolve defence property issue

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen urged Bosnian political leaders on Wednesday (July 14th) to agree on the issue of defence property allocation as soon as possible, since it is key to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s (BiH) NATO membership bid. Rasmussen, who met with Bosnian Foreign Minister Sven Alkalaj and Defence Minister Selmo Cikotic in Brussels, praised BiH’s decision to join the peacekeeping force in Afghanistan and other activities related to implementing NATO reforms. Alkalaj stressed that public support for NATO integration is very solid. In April, NATO foreign ministers gave conditional approval to BiH’s Membership Action Plan (MAP) but said BiH must first resolve the issue of allocating various defence properties between the two entities.