Minister of Defense in technical mandate Raško Konjević said that part of the members of the Army of Montenegro who will be in the combat group in Bulgaria must be trained in the use of armored vehicles, for which it is necessary to use the military shooting range in Sinjajevina, if no other location is chosen for that purpose.
He said at the Government session that the first contingent will be trained in Macedonia, and that by the end of the year it should be decided whether they will be trained in Sinjajevina or another location.
He pointed out that the shooting range is also needed for the reason that Montenegro is a NATO country which, under the current circumstances, must carry out at least one joint NATO exercise every year.
"Collective training includes maneuvering exercises and the use of longer-range live ammunition, which implies that we do not have a suitable shooting range in any barracks where it could be used, but it is necessary to use a military shooting range," Konjević said.
He said that it was agreed at the Council for Defense and Security that, bearing in mind that in accordance with the decision of the Assembly on sending soldiers, and the context that this combat mission will certainly last and that rotations are carried out for six months, the first contingent of soldiers must be sent to the end of January.
"The procedure for making a decision on sending them involves the proposal of the Chief of the General Staff and the signature of the Minister of Defense. "Neither any chief nor any minister, I'm sure, will sign the decision to send them if those soldiers are not trained," Konjević said.
Prime Minister in the technical mandate Dritan Abazović said that Montenegro cannot be a member of the NATO alliance and have its own army without a training ground.
"Soldiers cannot go there unprepared. They have to undergo certain training. We don't currently have a training ground, we have a dilemma...about Sinjajevina, which is the largest pasture in Europe. If there is no training ground, we allocate significant funds for our soldiers to go to training at other training grounds. I said at the Council session that the Ministry of Ecology and Spatial Planning and the Ministry of Agriculture should look at where the location for the military training ground could potentially be," said Abazović.
The Minister of Ecology, Spatial Planning and Urbanism, Ana Novaković-Đurović, recalled that the Ministry proposed in July that Sinjajevina be a protected area, and that the decision on the military training ground be repealed. She pointed out that they stand by that position.
"I don't know if there will be a location by the end of the year. No one questions the fulfillment of our obligations within the NATO alliance and the need for our soldiers to be trained. In this part, we are all on the same task... Just as we are a NATO member, we are also an ecological state in the Constitution," she said.
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