Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia’s President, said on Monday he would like Bosnia's Council of Ministers (CoM) Chairman to prove his love for the Sandzak region in practice and to remember that Sandzak is not an entity in Serbia.
Referring to the statement by the Chairman of Bosnia’s Council of Ministers Denis Zvizdic who said he respected Serbia but loved Sandzak (a southwestern part of Serbia mostly populated by the Bosniaks), Vucic said that everybody had a right to love what they want. Zvizdic actually paraphrased Vucic's words about honouring Bosnia but loving Republika Srpska (a Serb semi-autonomous entity in Bosnia).
“I have to point out to him – since he is not a lawyer and thus does not understand it quite well – the constitutional and legal status of RS and Raska region, or Sandzak, what the Bosniaks call it, is neither the same nor even similar,“ Vucic said. He added that “Zvizdic may be sending a message that RS should not be constitutionally and legally regulated, but that would not be a good message.”
“I want him to show his love for Sandzak by building kindergartens and schools in Novi Pazar, Tutin, Sjenica and to name these institutions ‘Bosnia and Herzegovina’. We would be delighted to receive these investments. They can build schools in Sandzak just like we build schools in Bosnia,” Vucic said.
Speaking at a public forum of his Party of Democratic Action (SDA) in Tuzla, CoM Chairman Denis Zvizdic said he respected Serbia but that he loves Serbia’s Sandzak region, home to Bosniak’s minority in Serbia.
“I said almost nothing about this, but I guess his statements came in the midst of the election campaign,” Vucic added.
Vucic talked about official Zagreb’s decision to deny hospitality to Aleksandar Vulin, Serbia’s Defence Minister, describing it as “hasty and nervous”.
“We will react with reciprocal measures which the government would decide upon on Thursday,” Vucic said. However, he added, Belgrade would continue to work on good relations with Zagreb.
Speaking to reporters at the ceremony marking the Army’s Day, Vucic said the Kosovo problem would be difficult to solve because the Albanians did not want a compromise. But, he added he was not sure “to what extent the Serbian society understands that we lost (the war against NATO) in 1999, that we had a catastrophic policy in the 2004-2011 period and that the price is being paid now…”
“But that doesn’t mean that someone should have gotten something that never belonged to them and that we would lose what was always ours,” Vucic said.
