International and local officials on Tuesday criticized statements made a day earlier in Sarajevo by the Speaker of Russia’s Federation Council of the Federal Assembly, Valentina Matviyenko, who said that her country is one of the guarantors of the Dayton Peace Accords but that it advocates the "removal" of the Office of the High Representative.

Her statements made in front of Bosnia’s Parliament caused outrage among pro-Bosnian parties.

Predrag Kojovic, from the Nasa Stranka (Our Party), said that whoever wrote Matvienkov’s speech still has the Cold War in his head and that for most normal people in Europe that war ended with the fall of the Berlin wall.

“Russia is still not able to convert its greed toward increased international influence and toward the territories of other countries into the development of its own democratic system,” Kojovic said.

“The Russian intentions to instigate, like the statements of Matviyenko and the information war they presented during Brexit and while helping Trump, have to be stopped in Bosnia right at the start,” he added.

Russia is one of the members of the Peace Implementation Council – an international body made of countries who co-signed the Bosnian peace agreement as guarantors of its implementation. The Office of the High Representative, OHR, is an institution established by the Dayton Peace Agreement and headed by a foreign official, charged with implementing it.

The Office said that the conditions for its closing were defined in 2008 but were never met. The High Representative, currently Austrian diplomat Valentin Inzko, has the right to impose and annul laws or fire officials who violate the Peace Agreement and Bosnian Serbs have been asking for years for this institution to be closed.

However, among the conditions for the closing of the OHR is the registration of former Yugoslav Army facilities as state property – something Bosnian Serbs vehemently oppose.

“Russia is a member of the Peace Implementation Council and has repeatedly stated that it respects the Dayton Peace Agreement,” a statement from the OHR said. “This includes the mandate of the High Representative as well as the preservation of the territorial integrity and the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” it said.

Political analyst Zlatko Hadzidedic criticised in an interview with N1 Bosnia’s foreign policy, asking why Bosnian politicians could not have explained this to Matveyenko.

“The Russian meddling in Bosnia and Herzegovina is a contradiction. If you are advocating Dayton, you can’t advocate the closing of the OHR in Bosnia. Someone should have told Matviyenko this,” he said.

“If we want to eliminate the OHR, then we must revise the entire Dayton Peace Agreement,” he said and explained that the Russian statements are part of the pressure it is applying on the West in hope to decrease Western pressure regarding Ukraine.

Other than that, Russia has no motive to get involved in Balkan politics, he said, describing the prevailing opinion that Russia is Serbia’s ally as a “myth” that serves for manipulations.