Sutanovac laid wreaths in Valjevo

Marking the Day of Memory of the killed in NATO bombing, the Defence Minister Dragan Sutanovac, Serbian Armed Forces Chief of General Staff Lieutenant General Miloje Miletic and Air Force Commander Brigadier General Ranko Zivak laid wreaths today on the monument to Colonel Milenko Pavlovic, pilot, and the Monument to victims fallen for the homeland in 1990-99 in Valjevo district.

Addressing the reporters after paying respect, the defence minister stressed that eleven years after the bombing of Serbia should be a contemporary and modern society.

- We perceive Serbia today as a country in the process of integration, an EU member, a country that promotes its heroes in the factory halls, schools, at work and other competitions. We wish to see Serbia as a country ready to ensure peace, stability, both in the region and worldwide through peacekeeping missions.

The Defence Minister said that one bad policy and disastrous decision on bombing led to heavy destruction and great casualties. Serbia, as Minister Šutanovac pointed out, found itself in a situation that never happened to it before – to be the enemy of its allies from the First and the Second World Wars.

- Today we paid respect to the pilot Milenko Pavlovic as a symbol of resistance and all heroes who gave their lives for the freedom of Serbia in the First and the Second World Wars - said Minister Sutanovac.

Besides the delegation of the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces, the members of his family, delegation of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, Ministry of Interior, the Serbian Orthodox Church, as well as representatives of the town of Valjevo, Kolubara District and many associations of the participants in the wars of 1941-99 paid respect to the pilot Pavlovic and all victims of the bombing, laying the wreaths.