Serbia Floats Plan to Help Russia De-Mine Syria

A leading Serbian military expert has cast strong doubts on the plans of the Serbian Defence Ministry to depoly troops in de-mining operations in Syria with Russia by the end of 2018.

Aleksandar Radic, an expert on military issues, told BIRN that Minister Zoran Djordjevic's pledge was a "wrong, easily given political promise".

"No way is the Serbian Army going to Syria to de-mine anything for one simple reason - because it would be choosing one side there," Radic explained.

As a militarily neutral country, Serbia cannot participate in any activities related to the civil war in Syria, except under a mandate of the United Nations or the European Union, he added.

Djordjevic told Russia's Tass news agency on April 25 that Serbian forces could soon take part in de-mining operations in Syria, including in Palmyra, later correcting himself to clarify that this might happen late in 2018, after suitable training of Serbian soldiers.

Djordjevic issued the plecge after meeting Russian counterpart Sergey Shoygu at a Moscow conference on international security, when he said: "Serbia supports all Russian initiatives" [in Syria and elsewhere].

"We want to participate together in all international activities. Specifically, we talked about the participation of Serbian armed forces in demining in Syria, including in Palmyra," Djordjevic said, adding that both Serbian and Russian troops need to be jointly represented on the international scene, Tass reported.

Djordjevic's later released an explanation, admitting that Serbia currently has no capacity or units trained for this job, but had a will to send people for training.

"Only after that, possibly at the end of 2018, [Serbia] could participate in humanitarian...