President Tadic to end defence strife

Dec 25, 2008, 7:41 GMT

Belgrade - Serbian defence leaders 'on the frontline' and President Boris 'Tadic must decide' are some of the headlines reporting Thursday on a rift between Defence Minister Dragan Sutanovac and the Chief of General Staff Zdravko Ponos.

The silent conflict bubbled over in public when Ponos ordered his generals not to attend Sutanovac's New Year reception and erupted when Ponos accused the Defence Ministry of incompetence costing Serbia millions of dollars and possibly even more in insufficient security.

Sutanovac's people retorted by accusing Ponos of meddling in politics instead of busying himself with the army.

Despite all that, there was no official reaction to the obvious rift which military analysts say is undermining the country's defence.

Instead it is expected that Tadic - who as president and even as the army commander-in-chief has limited formal power, but nevertheless has nearly limitless authority - will remove one of the two feuding men, both of whom are his political allies.

Tadic so far appears undecided and only stated that he 'carefully monitors all developments.'

'It is possible that public officials may have differing views, but that must not become a source of instability in any system, least of all in the defence system,' Tadic said.

Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic, who operates from under Tadic's shadow, however rejected Ponos' claim that 'Serbia has no defence policy' and told Serbians 'not to worry.'

The Serbian military has been deteriorating since the disintegration of former Yugoslavia and remains plagued by shortage of money, corruption and a hopelessly outdated doctrine.

Serbia joined NATO's Partnership for Peace programme two years ago, but effectively suspended any progress toward NATO membership over Western support of the breakaway province of Kosovo's secession in February.