Radmanovic Urges Bosnian FM to Resign

Nebojsa Radmanovic, the Serb member of the Bosnian tripartite Presidency, has urged the country’s Foreign Minister, Zlatko Lagumdzija, to resign over Bosnia’s UN vote on Syria.Day after his party boss and the president of Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity, Milorad Dodik, had said that all political agreements between the ruling six parties are suspended until Lagumdzija resigns, Radmanovic called a press conference in Sarajevo to reiterate calls for the Foreign Minister’s resignation.“This is not about Syria, this is about the flagrant violation of the constitution,” Radmanovic said.

Radmanovic explained that he is not asking for Lagumdzija’s resignation because Bosnia supported the UN resolution condemning violence in Syria but because the Foreign Minister did not have the official Presidency’s decision prior to instructing Bosnia’s UN representative on how to vote.

Radmanovic added that Bakir Izetbegovic, the Bosniak member of the Presidency and its current chairman, should admit that he made a mistake when he told Lagumdzija to go ahead with the UN vote without having reached an agreement with the other members of the Presidency.

“This crisis was not caused in Banja Luka but in this very building [Presidency] and the neighbouring one [Foreign Ministry],” Radmanovic said.

In a letter sent to Radmanovic on August 8, Lagumdzija said Izetbegovic had informed him that the tripartite Presidency was yet to take an official stance on the UN General Assembly’s Syrian resolution, so that earlier decisions on the situation in Syria remained in force.

The Bosnian Presidency backed the UN Security Council’s resolutions on Syria on November 4, 2011 and February 17, 2012.

Lagumdzija also wrote that he did not do anything unconstitutional and that he only protected Bosnia’s international reputation by instructing the vote against the violence in Syria.

During the press conference Radmanovic urged Lagumdzija to move to the opposition, stating that only then could he criticize the work of the Presidency, but as the Foreign Minister he should only implement what the Presidency says since that is the only institution tasked to lead the foreign policy.