US-Croatian project to help Udbina municipality
Assistant Minister for Defence Cooperation dr. Dragan Lozančić and Chief of Operations and Training Directorate of General Staff, Rear Admiral (LH) Tihomir Erceg, together with the head of the U.S. Office of Defense Cooperation Colonel Troy D. Eggum and head of humanitarian assistance Diana Maršić and Mayor of Udbina Ivan Pešut, visited today, on Wednesday, July 11, construction works on the main water supply pipeline and reconstruction of the kindergarten in Udbina, which has been carried out by the American and Croatian soldiers in the frame of the international military exercise Jackal Stone 2012, which will be held in September in Croatia.
These are the projects of civil-military cooperation which help the local community and are funded by the U.S. side. These are related to the water supply works valued at more than 170 000 U.S. dollars and for the reconstruction of the kindergarten valued almost 100 000 dollars.
Besides this, American side invested more than 500 000 US $ in building a command post for the exercise in Josip Jović barracks. The Mayor thanked the armed forces for such help to a community.
The Jackal Stone 2012 exercise will involve members of special forces from 11 countries and representatives of special forces from 7 countries will be in observer status. Director of the exercises is Colonel Martin Starčević.
The Republic of Croatia for the second time is the host for exercise, which is extraordinary recognition to our country. In the organization of the exercise are involved all services of the Croatian Armed Forces, Ministry of Defence and other government bodies. Lozančić said that this exercise was important for the development of relations and cooperation with partners and that Croatia was once again honoured to be a host of the exercise that is the largest partner exercise in Europe this year.
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