Today (21.05.2012) in the Training Centre (TC) “Pepelishte” was held a ceremonial opening of the exercise “Cooperative Longbow / Lancer 2012”, during which the Chief of General Staff of the Republic of Macedonia, General Major Gorancho Koteski, the Deputy Minister of Defence, Emil Dimitirev, and the Commander of Madrid Allied Forces, Lieutenant General Alfredo Cardona Torres addressed.
The Chief of General Staff of the Republic of Macedonia noted that there are great expectations from the exercise, especially due to the planned NATO assessment of the medium infantry company level 2, and the medium infantry battalion group from level 1 that are assessed by the concept of operational capabilities of NATO. “I believe that the exercise ‘Cooperative Longbow / Lancer 2012’, a complex exercise in many ways, will be carried out successfully, and that the successful preparation will enable adoption of new NATO standards and further specialization of declared units for peacekeeping missions.”
The exercise was preceded by months of individual and collective preparations, in order to carry out training and practicing in different situations, predicted with the NATO list of tasks, and determined during execution of the peace support operations (PSO).
The opening of the exercise had media coverage by a part of the electronic and printed media in the country.
In addition, today ended the NATO assessment LEVEL 2 – CREVAL /Combat readiness evaluation/ of the declared medium infantry company which is a part of the 4th Mechanized Infantry Battalion of the 1st Mechanized Infantry Brigade, planned for the battalion group of the European Union (EU BG II/2012), as well as CBRN section from the CBRN company.
Tomorrow, May 22 (Tuesday), start the activities for assessing the medium infantry battalion group of the exercise “Cooperative Longbow / Lancer 2012”.