The certificate has been presented at the Police Directorate in Zagreb by UN official Stefan Schwarz, the Ministry of the Interior said in a statement on Thursday, noting that Croatia is among the few countries in the world that has been awarded such a certificate.
The certificate is the fruit of the successful work of the Police Directorate and long-standing professional cooperation with the UN, the purpose of which has been to ensure that Croatian police officers are a guarantor of the successful conduct of peacekeeping operations around the world, the statement said.
According to the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, Croatia has been involved in international peacekeeping operations since 1999, when its troops joined an UN observer mission in Sierra Leone. In addition to army personnel, peacekeeping missions were gradually joined by Croatian police, diplomatic staff and staff of other government departments such as the Ministry of Justice.
Croatia currently participates in 10 UN, NATO and EU missions and operations, contributing a total of 150 army personnel and 17 police officers.
Since 2005, the Department for Peacekeeping Missions, in cooperation with other organisational units of the Ministry of the Interior, has been organising the UN basic police training course for UN peacekeeping missions. Every year training is held in Valbandon, near Pula. In addition to Croatian police, the course has been completed to date by police officers from Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Slovakia, Iraq, Lithuania, Sweden, Malawi, Uganda, Yemen and Israel.