Today, the Chief of the General Staff (CGS) of the Army, Lieutenant General Vasko Gjurchinovski is attending the 13th conference of the Chiefs of General Staff, which is held in Bucharest, Romania.
At the conference, apart from the host the Chief of the General Staff of Romania, General Nicolae Ionel Ciuca, there are Chiefs of Staff of armies from eight countries: the Republic of North Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Turkey and Montenegro, and Croatia and Slovenia as observer countries. Special guests are the chairman of NATO military committee, Air Chief Marshal Stuart Peach and the UN advisor for peacekeeping operations Lieutenant General Carlos Humberto Loitey as well as high officials from the EU Military Committee and the NATO Allied Joint Force Command Naples.
General Gjurchinovski in his speech stressed the importance and the benefits of exercises and training as practical ways for promoting trust, cooperation, interoperability and mutual understanding as well as the support for further development and implementation of projects which will strengthen regional cooperation. He also thanked the chairmen of the working groups for coordination, asymmetric threats, education and training, and exercise for their work during the course of the year. In the spirit of this cooperation from 30th to 2nd October at the Public Affairs Regional Centre in Skopje there was a Basic Affairs Course.
In accordance with the programme of the 13th Conference the Chiefs of General Staff of the Balkan countries signed a mutual statement confirming their resolute commitment of enlarging and strengthening the military cooperation.
During the conference General Gjurchinovski had a meeting with the Chief of the General Staff of Romania, General Nicolae Ionel Ciuca. They discussed the possibilities for increasing the bilateral cooperation in the area of training and exercises.
The aim of the conference is discussing and strengthening the military cooperation of Balkan countries as well as the means to deal with all security challenges, risks and threats in the region. The activities at the conference are mainly focused on training and education, namely, activities that enable mutual achievement of the required level of interoperability, thus enabling mutual activities in different situations. This is related to execution of military exercises as well as assessment of asymmetric threats in the Balkan.
