Vucevic: No giving up on initiative to reinstate compulsory military service

BELGRADE  - Serbian Defence Minister Milos Vucevic said on Thursday there was no giving up on an initiative to reinstate compulsory military service.

Speaking to the RTS, Vucevic said his ministry and the Serbian Armed Forces General Staff had officially submitted the initiative to the military cabinet of the president of Serbia.

"We will hear what they have to say, and a public debate will follow," Vucevic said, adding that the final decision was up to the Serbian parliament.

He said it remained to be seen whether, if reinstated, the compulsory military service would last 100 or 120 days.

"Our proposal is that it should last up to four months and, if the state authorities accept this, we will, of course, also request a timeframe so that we can prepare barracks and recruitment centres and create the conditions for receiving recruits that would be conformed to contemporary life," Vucevic noted.

He said the initiative was not a call to war but a result of an understanding of all security aspects of the present geopolitical circumstances, the situation in the country and the region and, first and foremost, the future of Serbia.

Speaking about the situation in Kosovo-Metohija, Vucevic said new trials of Serbs accused of alleged war crimes were starting and that this was a message to the entire Serb community in Kosovo-Metohija that they are undesirable or not allowed to remain or survive in a territory they had been living in for centuries.

"Secondly, the political pressure on Serbia over the Kosovo-Metohija issue is definitely continuing, but not only over that issue - there is also the issue of the relationship with Russia, and we also have the issue of attempts to unitarise Bosnia and Herzegovina and the issue of regional relations," Vucevic said, noting that a difficult period was ahead, especially over the next six months, with Kosovo-Metohija as the predominant topic.

He noted that Belgrade needed to continue to be fully constructive while safeguarding state and national interests and having clearly defined "red lines."

Commenting on a statement by EU special envoy Miroslav Lajcak, who has said he expected Belgrade and Pristina to reach an agreement by end-January, Vucevic said something that had not been achieved for decades could not realistically be expected by the end of January or even by the end of the year.