DAYTON, Ohio —  Delegates with NATO’s PA are ready to get to work.

Friday features the opening ceremony and marks the first official start of the spring session. 

While it’s exciting to watch the event take shape, it’s important to note the historical significance the weekend holds.

This is the 70th anniversary of the Assembly and it also pays tribute to the 30th anniversary of the Dayton Peace Accords, which secured peace in the Balkans in 1995. 

“You are at the Dayton International Peace Museum, the only Peace Museum in the entire United States. I’ll show you our exhibit on the Dayton Peace Accords,” said International Peace Museum Executive Director Alice Young-Basora as she gave a tour. 

Stepping into the International Peace Museum is like entering a time capsule that preserves a very specific moment in history. 

The creation of it was inspired in part by the Dayton Peace Accords.  

“Two of our founders, the Dulls, they were traveling abroad, they were doing service work in Russia and Ukraine,” Young-Basora said.

They wanted to create a place to promote peace.  

“When they got back they had three of their friends and they all got together with peace minded people and started the Peace Museum 20 years ago, almost 21 years ago in a church basement. They bought an old victorian house over on Monument Avenue, and almost 3 years ago we opened up this space,” she said.

Along with the permanent Peace Accords exhibit, the museum is highlighting NATO and its role in history.

However, one of the most powerful pieces just put up is called “Enduring the Siege of Sarajevo” by Rikard Larma.  

“It is a project from a photojournalist who was in Sarajevo, lived his entire life in Sarajevo, and moved over to the states after the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords,” Impact and Museum Initiatives Manager Chelsea Cozad. 

Larma reached out to the museum to highlight the snapshots of survival and stories of the people.

“The people who had to live without electricity, had to live on meager supplies, their city was cut off from all resources, food…you see a man eating a porcupine  he has nothing else to eat. You see women who are trying to do their laundry, do their day to day lives with bombed out windows,” Cozad said. 

Just feet away from the Peace Museum, inside the historic courthouse, delegates can see the exhibit called “Dayton Around the World”.

Guests can see groundbreaking aviation history from the Wright Brothers, historic pieces from the signing of the Peace Accords, artifacts highlighting natural history, and other pieces from the NATO PA. 

For Young-Basora, being here now to help showcase Dayton as a moment in history brings a feeling of gratitude.

“We are a city of peace. I can look over there and see the windows of Welcome Dayton and Dayton was the first officially welcoming city which is a designation where we are open to immigrants and refugees and we were the first in the country to do so. And that is something I think we should be really proud of,” she said.

Here's some photos from the NATO PA on Friday: