The Peace Support Operations Training Centre (PSOTC) of Bosnia and Herzegovina was created in 2003, following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the United Kingdom, and has been established as a multinational project of 12 partner nations, including Switzerland. The PSOTC offered its first course in 2005 (International PSO Staff Officers Course) and in November 2005, their first Defence Attaché Course was conducted with the GCSP.

Originally a 3-day course, the experience was reiterated in 2007 for 5 days in Sarajevo. From then on, a course has been jointly run every year between the GCSP and PSOTC since 2012 and is one of the oldest Defence Attachés courses run by the GCSP. During this time, the PSOTC became a member of the Partners Training and Education Centres (PTEC) of NATO. Since then, the PSOTC has been recognised and accredited as a NATO, EU and UN training centre.

The Defence Attachés courses are run at the GCSP to support military diplomacy and as a contribution to peace, security and stability all around the world. The GCSP and the PSOTC both firmly believe that when uniformed people stop talking, the door opens for weapons to talk.

Since 2012, the Defence Attachés courses have run every year up to 2021, aside from 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They always had great success and have been run internationally, with a focus on the Balkans region.

The objectives of the courses have been very clear:

• Establish and/or strengthen existing channels of communication between military representatives.
• Build trust between parties.
• Develop transparency regarding intentions.
• Create a problem-solving attitude between military representatives.

In 2023, the PSOTC decided to run the course independently and asked the GCSP to support this initiative. The future course director at the PSOTC joined the GCSP course in Geneva in March 2024 as co-director for preparation and in June 2024, the first DA course entirely led by the PSOTC took place with great success. The GCSP considers it as a multiplicator of its own activities, and from a capacity building point of view, a great success of cooperation.

The GCSP and the PSOTC have other activities in common, including the yearly Euro-Atlantic Security Course (EASC), where we, alongside other institutions, join efforts to disseminate joint values and better understanding about security in the Euro-Atlantic region.

Both centres have developed a higher level of teaching methodology, including at strategic level, thanks a constant development of their respective staff and facilities toward quality of delivery. Thanks to their cooperation, both could extend their outreach and network and certainly contribute to more peaceful relationships between countries in the Western Balkan Region.