WORLD NEWS FOR MONTENEGRO DIASPORA
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AUTHOR: M.J.- POBJEDA
Minister of Defense Dragan Krapović issued a decision yesterday on the retirement of the Chief of the General Staff of the Army of Montenegro, General Zoran Lazarevic, Pobjeda was confirmed by that department.
The decision on the retirement of General Lazarevic, in accordance with Article 130 of the Constitution, must be confirmed by the Council for Defense and Security chaired by the head of state, Jakov Milatovic, who opposed Lazarevic's dismissal at the previous session of that body.
The proposal for his dismissal was submitted to the Council by Minister Krapović, but Milatović did not accept it because, according to Pobjeda's unofficial information, Krapović did not state a specific reason for Lazarević's dismissal.
Krapović referred to the need to rejuvenate the military staff, but for Milatović, that was not a strong enough reason to dismiss the experienced general.
Pobjeda's source from the General Staff believes that the decision to retire Lazarevic is problematic because, as he explained, there is no decision to terminate his service.
Given that yesterday's decision by Minister Krapović on the retirement of General Lazarević left the Army of Montenegro without a commander, it is up to the head of state to convene a new emergency session of the Defense and Security Council at which a new Chief of the General Staff would be appointed.
According to several Montenegrin media, the minister plans to replace Lazarevic with Colonel Miodrag Vuksanovic, the national representative of Montenegro at the NATO Allied Command in Mons.
Earlier, in an interview with Pobjeda, Krapović said that his proposal for the dismissal of the Chief of General Staff is supported by the fact that Brigadier General Zoran Lazarević has already fulfilled the conditions for termination of service in the Army, which are prescribed by Article 145 of the Law on the Army of Montenegro, and in connection with Article 203 of that law .
According to Krapović, Lazarević fulfilled these conditions even before he assumed the post of Minister of Defense.
- For this reason, I proposed his dismissal, even though it is an indisputable fact that Brigadier General Lazarevic, according to the approval of the then head of the Ministry of Defense, Filip Adžić, is still in service in the Army, and after meeting the conditions for termination of service prescribed by the Law on the Army of Montenegro, which that a professional military person's service in the Army ends upon fulfillment of the conditions from Article 203 of this law - stated Krapović at the time.
The minister also pointed out that the aforementioned article of the law stipulates that "officers and contract officers, non-commissioned officers and contract non-commissioned officers shall serve in the Army until they have completed 35 years of effective insurance and 55 years of age", while paragraph 3 of the same article stipulates that for a person from paragraph 1 of this article, service in the Army can last up to 40 years of insurance service and 55 years of age.
- In the same article, in paragraph 4, it is prescribed that, with the exception of paragraphs 1 and 3 of this article, when the needs of the service require it, the minister can, on the proposal of the Chief of the General Staff, i.e. a leading person in the Ministry, extend the duration of service in the Army for a professional military person, and the longest up to two years. I don't see anything controversial in my decision, for the reasons mentioned above, and all with the aim of improving and improving the efficiency of the defense system as a whole - explained Krapović earlier.
