Eurasia Press & News
Republic of Srpska (RS) PM Milorad Dodik said that Bosnia-Herzegovina could fall apart if the international community continues pressuring its institutions.
Dodik said that the international community is “constantly working on violating the sovereignty of Bosnia and the two entities, as well as their institutions”.
“Bosnia-Herzegovina has international subjectivity and legitimacy, but does not have them internally. If they continue with these pressures, Bosnia will fall apart, because its institutions will not be able to handle the burden,” Dodik said.
In another interview, this time for Belgrade’s Večernje Novosti newspaper, the RS premier said that he is “not sure anymore whether even minor changes to the Constitution would be possible”.
“If the meeting in Butmir with Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, American Under Secretary of State James Steinberg and European Enlargement Commission Olli Rehn was set up just to please the Bosniaks [Bosnian Muslims], then that is another mistake of the international community and we will not participate in it,” Dodik said.
But he noted that this does not mean that RS officials will pull lout of negotiations, adding that the “question is what can be achieved”, and that this is what “should be discussed”.
He said that the country is deeply divided and that “foreigns must say whether anyone asked the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina if they want to live in Bosnia-Herzegovina”.
“The Dayton Accord was signed by Serbia, Croatia and some bodies of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which were represented by Alija Izetbegović. Annex 4 of the Dayton Agreement, the Bosnian Constitution, was signed by RS, the Federation and some joint bodies of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia. This means that the Constitution can be changed only in this set up, everything else is not serious or sustainable,” Dodik said.
He explained that the Serb entity, RS, is a side and signatory without which there can be no agreement.
The prime minister also told the newspaper that a compromise with the Bosniaks and Croats – who form the second entity, the Bosnian Federation – is possible, “but only if it does not have negative effects on RS”.
“If I said that minimal constitutional changes are possible, I am not sure about that anymore now,” Dodik noted.
He added that he said at the meeting with European officials that RS does not have interest or need to change the Constitution and that the entity will not give up its powers.
Dodik said that Serbian President Boris Tadić offered “his already known stances – that Serbia supports the Dayton Accord strongly and the two-entity format, and that it will accept any agreement between the three constitutive peoples.”
