NATO and the Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes hosted the 12^th Clearing House on Defence Education, attended by 107 participants from 23 countries and 62 educational and training institutions from NATO and partner countries.

The meeting took place in Bled, Slovenia, with support from the Slovenian Armed Forces Military Schools Centre, from June 19^th till June 22^nd, 2023. During the opening address to the meeting participants, the Chief of the General Staff of the Slovenian Armed Forces, Major General Robert Glavaš highlighted the key importance of interoperability and military education and training in the Alliance and partner countries.

"Only well trained military personnel will be able to deal with current and future security challenges, and helping partner nations develop their professional military education must remain one of our most important goals," said Major General Glavaš.

The Director for Defence and Security Cooperation at NATO, Piers Cazalet, reiterated the significance of "intellectual interoperability" among NATO and partner countries. "Ukraine is an example of a country that has since 2014 benefited from the assistance provided by the Defence Education Enhancement Programme (DEEP) in aligning its Officer and Non-Commissioned Officer corps with NATO standards," he said at the end of his speech.

Currently, 15 partner countries are involved in the NATO DEEP and are supported by educational and training institutions of NATO and partner countries.  They are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Georgia, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Mauritania, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Serbia, Tunisia and Ukraine.

The Armed Forces Academy of General Milan Rastislav Stefanik (AFA) is a contributor to the program in several countries (Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia). The cooperation goes through LTC Martin Chovanec, Academic Lead for the field of Officer and Non-Commissioned Officer training and language training for the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina.  High contribution is also thanks to the members of the International Courses Department (ICD) of the Professional Military Education Center (PMEC) of AFA, who provide training of officers mainly in the field of operational planning and decision-making process at the tactical level.