NATO Deputy Secretary General: The Western Balkans overcome problems

At the 2025 NATO Youth Summit, it said that even after the end of the 1990s wars, there are still divisive rhetoric.

And one of the great lessons I learned back then is that if there's no war, that's not enough. And what I've seen during the 1990s is that words matter. Now we have a peaceful Western Balkans. The countries cooperate. They don't fight each other. We have a strong interaction. The main focus is membership in the European Union. Many of the countries have become NATO members, so I welcome them here, but we have not yet moved forward with divisive rhetoric. We still have him in the region. We still have nationalist rhetoric, even separatists”.

And these are not just words. What we've seen in the 1990s is that words can sometimes be more dangerous than weapons, and that they can lead to violence, they can lead to hatred. And this is why our message to the Western Balkans, we have made a number of visits, the Secretary General was in Sarajevo recently, the entire North Atlantic Council with the Secretary General and I, we were in Pristina. We really try to be very systematic in sending the message: The Western Balkans matter”, Sekerinska has said.

Sekerinska has confirmed that they expect Balkan countries to resolve their situation.

And problems will not be solved with hatred and division. They will be selected with many hard work and cooperation. And that's what we expect. This is what we invest in. Our biggest mission is still KFOR. We also support EU efforts and EU forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina. And we will continue to be very committed to this region. And I urge all participants to help us design and develop a different Western Western Balkans than the Balkans, right?