NATO chief in Serbia: This is not military exercise

"It's a platform for first responders to learn from each other in order to receive the real experiences together and to better prepare for times when we face life's emergency situations," Stoltenberg said in Mladenovac, near Belgrade, on Monday.

He thanked President Aleksandar Vucic for his personal contribution in order for this exercise to be realized.

Stoltenberg noted that it is "vital" to do everything in order to be well prepared and the opportunity to test new means for removing the consequences of natural disasters such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality and an incidents system of advanced generation.

These are also "technologies that can improve the way of communication and how to coordinate our reaction regardless of hat challenges we are facing," he said.

"Serbia 2018 is an exercise which is a test. It shows our strengths and our weaknesses, it will enable us to learn together and to better harmonize. It is also a great example of how partnership with NATO can bring concrete benefits to Serbia, NATO and the whole region," Stoltenberg said.

He explained that the experience gained in the previous exercises helped save thousands of lives, and that "the lessons learned today will help us save more in the time ahead."

Stoltenberg and Vucic attended today the opening of the exercise to be held in Mladenovac, Sopot and Arandjelovac October 6-11, with participation of over 2,000 people from 38 countries.

This civil emergency exercise is co-organized by the NATO Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Center (EADRCC) and the Serbian Ministry of Interior.

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