The British Embassy in Sarajevo said that Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik is risking "damaging the long-term relationship with the UK" with his recent statements accusing the UK of trying to meddle with the Bosnian election.

Dodik, who is the President of Bosnia’s Serb-dominated semi-autonomous Republika Srpska (RS) entity, has recently repeatedly accused the UK of working against his Government and toward the further centralisation of Bosnia.

Dodik’s statement came after British media reported that the UK will sent 40 military personnel to the country to oversee the fairness of the upcoming October general election. He claimed the Brits coming to Bosnia are, in fact, “intelligence operatives.”

“The British Embassy will not give a running commentary on the growing list of ridiculous conspiracy theories promoted by RS President Dodik and RTRS, the public broadcaster which is, as the EU confirmed in its 2016 report on BiH, under the firm political control of his party,” the Embassy said.

“But we cannot ignore the recent unfounded attack on two well-known journalists who, together with many others, recently took part in the UK/BiH Fellowship programme,” the statement said, referring to Dodik’s recent claim that two journalist of the local BN TV were working against the interests of Republika Srpska.

“This kind of political pressure and intimidation of individual journalists is wholly unacceptable, and is an attack upon freedom of expression,” the Embassy statement said, adding that there are almost 250 members of the UK/BiH Fellowship scheme and that some of them are senior representatives of the RS Government and RTRS.

The Embassy expressed disappointment with Dodik, saying he has “chosen repeatedly to portray the UK as in some way a threat to the RS.”

“Inventing fake threats may be a good way to score electoral points, but it risks damaging the long-term relationship with the UK,” the statement said, noting also that the UK is a longstanding partner of the RS and that it has spent “millions of KM helping the RS authorities to fulfill their important constitutional responsibilities” within Bosnia.

“The UK does not take sides in elections” in Bosnia as its commitment is “to work with anyone who will respect the constitution and implement reforms to make this country a better place to live,” the Embassy said.

The Embassy would like to hear more about what the parties in Bosnia plan to do to to strengthen the economy and the rule of law, and to stop the brain drain of young people, it said.

“We would kindly ask all concerned to focus upon these important domestic issues, and stop trying to draw the UK into their election campaigns,” the statement concluded.

Dodik reacted the same day, saying that it was not him who said that the UK was sending military personnel to to help prevent Russian meddling in a presidential election in October but the UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson.

Therefore, Dodik said, the Embassy should be addressing the member of its own government.

“The Embassy of Great Britain should not be lecturing about freedom of expression or any other internal political issue because they are not here to deal with that and because the British Ambassador has recently slammed the editorial policy of RTRS for which he would be kicked out by any souvereign country,” the RS President said.

He also said at one point he can agree with the Embassy’s statement regarding the conspiracy theories.

“I don’t believe in conspiracy theories either, I believe in conspiracy and one such conspiracy we have been talking about in recent days,” he said.