The Republika Srpska entity President Milorad Dodik said there are many unknowns about the Sarajevo-Belgrade highway and that this entity has other infrastructural priorities. He also said that the Serb national idea of this century is the RS’ unification with Serbia.
Opening the seventh international conference on Jasenovac concentration camp from the World War Two he said that RS’ priority is the construction of the Banjaluka-Bijeljina and the border with Serbia and that the other important project for RS is the construction of the Visegrad-Istocno Sarajevo highway.
He told the journalists that RS officials believed that Turkey would provide a donation for the construction of the Sarajevo-Belgrade highway, not a loan.
“We don't know what kind of funds will be used for its construction. Several days ago, the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke about a loan, but not the amount, its interest rates or the favourability and the grace period,” Dodik said. “They are talking about the expressway as if its a done deal.”
Dodik finds it controversial that everyone is talking about the highway as if its a done deal.
“Should the loan conditions be acceptable, we will apply for it. If not then we will find some other, more favourable, sources of funding,” Dodik added.
Turkey expressed readiness to financially support the highway construction, leaving it to Bosnia and Serbia to decide on the routes that would connect their two capitals. After the entity governments of the Republika Srpska (RS) and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) failed to agree on one of the two potential routes that would connect Bosnia with Serbia's part of the highway, Turkey said it would finance both routes.
He also touched upon the relations between the RS and Serbia, saying that he is not afraid to say that “the Serb national idea of this century is the state unification between the RS entity and the Republic of Serbia.”
“We mustn’t hesitate to say that one of the things we must achieve is the state unification of the RS and Serbia. Regardless of how much someone liked the idea or not, that is the Serb national idea of this century. Its a hair-raising idea to many, but we have a historic right to it,” Dodik concluded.
