PSOTC and Parliament visit in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Yesterday (Thursday 14 July), we were hosted by the Commandant of the Peace Support Operations Training Center (PSOTC) in Sarajevo.  PSOTC is very proud to have received a quality assurance accreditation by NATO.  We visited PSOTC last year as well, and we're very happy to have added this Bosnian military education and training center to our regular Balkans Dialogue itinerary.



And today (Friday), we had a very busy day in Sarajevo.  We started at the World Bank's office in BiH and received an absolutely brilliant economic briefing by the Country Manager for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ms. Tatiana Proskuryakova.  (Praying for her power point!)

Then, we walked one block over to the BiH Parliament and had an equally brilliant political analysis by Mr. Senad Šepić, a self-described "dissident" within the dominant Bosniak party, the SDA (the Party of Democratic Action), led by Bosniak president Bakir Izetbegović.  Here we are at the entrance to Parliament (with a couple of US Army folks who just happened to walk by and were happy to "photo bomb" our group shot with the MP!).


After this visit, we made our way to the US Embassy for a briefing on politics, security, and public diplomacy/public engagement with 3 Embassy staff.

And after that, we all left and got soaked in the worst rain we've had all week!  Still, it didn't dampen our spirits (so to speak :-)


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