Garčević Participates on Panel Preceding NATO Summit
Last week, ahead of the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, Ambassador Vesko Garčević, Professor of the Practice of International Relations at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, took part in the Al Jazeera Balkan political talk show – Context. The show featured Prof. Goran Bandov, from Zagreb University, Croatia, and Prof. Petar Kurečić, from North University, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The panel addressed challenges related to Swedish NATO membership, NATO enlargement in general, and repercussions of the current events, such as the war in Ukraine and Swedish and Finnish NATO membership, for the future European security architecture.
Ambassador Garčević pointed out that despite the Turkish blockade of Sweden and Ankara’s repeated assertions that it would not give in to its demands a deal might be still possible. If a deal would be reached, it might happen at the very last moment. He commented on the Turkish desire to purchase US fighter jets F-16s in order to improve its military capabilities after being removed from a US-led international program of developing and producing new F-35 fighter jets. In his view, this issue and Swedish membership are closely interconnected, and if an agreement could be found about the US fighter jets, Ankara might withdraw its veto on Swedish membership (which eventually happened).
Answering the question of how the recent burning of the Quran in front of a mosque in central Stockholm might impact the future Swedish/Turkish relations, Garčević highlighted how Stockholm found itself torn between the freedom of expression that the country firmly stands for and the need to respect the rights of its minorities and their beliefs.
Watch the full segment here.
Ambassador Vesko Garčević dealt with issues pertinent to European security and NATO for almost 14 years during his diplomatic career. In 2004, he was posted in Vienna to serve as Ambassador to Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He was Montenegro’s Ambassador to NATO from 2010 until 2014 and served as Montenegro’s National Coordinator for NATO from 2015 until he joined the faculty at the Pardee School. Learn more about Ambassador Garčević on his faculty profile.