Belgrade Security Forum begins

BELGRADE - The 4th Belgrade Security Forum, titled Europe 2014: Closure and/or New Beginning, to be attended by many politicians and foreign policy and security experts, began on Tuesday at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Belgrade.

The Forum opened with an academic conference titled Usable Past, Collective Memories and International Security and an address by professor Iver Neumann from the London School of Economics and Political Science on Russia as a former big power.

The academic conference, aimed at providing a theoretical insight into topics to be discussed at the main part of the Forum, has this year attracted unprecedented attention in Serbia and abroad, the organisers say.

The topics to be discussed are very important for Serbia, too, because they can help it gain better insight and define its future foreign and security policy activities, but also establish ties with foreign experts, many of whom have an impact on the foreign policies of their countries, Sonja Liht, director of the Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence, said in a statement to Tanjug, the media partner of the Forum.

The topics will also include the EU enlargement, the EU's relations with its periphery, the OSCE, migrations, future relations between Serbs and Albanians, energy security and the impact of the Ukrainian crisis on the European integration process.

The three-day conference will deal with the most pressing regional and international foreign policy issues, security and economy in a year of significant anniversaries - the centenary of the outbreak of World War I, the anniversary of the great EU enlargement, as well as the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The organisers have announced that Serbian Prime...