China and Serbia gear up for first joint military training exercise
Chinese defence ministry spokesman Jiang Bin said on Monday that army special forces from China and
Serbia would hold the joint training exercise Peace Defenders-2025 in Hebei in late July.
'This will be the first joint training between the Chinese and Serbian militaries. It will help strengthen the combat skills of participating troops and deepen cooperation between the two militaries,' Jiang said.
Similar joint exercises are usually hosted on a rotating basis, but neither side has said whether Serbia will host such a drill in the future.
This will also be the first time for China to conduct exercises with European forces since it held joint counterterrorism training with Belarus near the border with Poland and Ukraine last July.
Serbia is considered one of China's closest partners in Europe, particularly since Nato's 1999 bombing of the former Yugoslavia, of which Serbia was a part.
It is one of six Western Balkan countries waiting to join the European Union, but it has no plans to join Nato.
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