Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he intends to hold in May a central election campaign rally in Sarajevo for the Turkish diaspora in Europe, but Bosnian authorities claim they still have not received an official announcement for the event.

Rumors about the visit have already garnered numerous reactions.

“Some European countries have began discussing whether they will provide a facility for the meeting or not, and we have decided to meet with our citizens in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Erdogan said during an official visit to South Korea yesterday. He said that some nine or ten thousand people are expected to attend the gathering.

Bosnia's government has not been informed about this, according to Bosnia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Turkish media say Erdogan's visit should take place on May 20, in one of Sarajevo's larger halls.

The largest one, Zetra, has not yet been reserved for such an event, N1 was told by the management.

“We have not had any reservations for that date, but we had some inquiries. They didn't state what it was about, but we had three or four inquiries, one of them came from a Turkish agency,” said Midhat Hubijar, the director of ZOI 84, which owns the Zetra hall.

Bosnia and Herzegovina was chosen because the country is a great political arena for Turkey, while Serbia and other countries are Turkey’s economic arenas “and we should think about that,” said former Bosnian diplomat and historian, Slobodan Soja.

He said he sees this as a “sick” habit of people in Bosnia to look for protectors abroad, while not understanding that “we are each other’s best protection against everything.”

According to political analyst Srecko Latal, such a gathering would benefit the main Bosniak political party, the Party for Democratic Action (SDA).

“The expected tying of the flags of the AK Party and the SDA will probably further strengthen the position of the SDA and maybe even help their candidate for the presidency at elections,” he said.

“It will also be a strong slap in the face, a strong message from Erdogan to the European Union, which has last year banned similar events in EU countries,” he added.

Sarajevo's hotels are already 94 percent booked for that day.