(Republika Srpska) President (Milorad) Dodik and I have always been very open and honest towards each other, even when we did not agree on something, said Edward Ferguson, the outgoing British Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina in a farewell interview with "Nezavisne novine" daily.

“We agreed that continuous dialogue is important and I am glad we have resolved all the misunderstandings,” Ferguson said in a written interview.

He also added that Milorad Dodik and he resolved all the doubts regarding the “40 British Spies” in coming to Bosnia.  

Namely, the British The Times reported that the U.K. will send about 40 military personnel to help EU forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina prevent Russian meddling in the October election. The Times quoted Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson as saying that he will tell his 28 counterparts at a NATO meeting that the move should demonstrate his country’s important role in European security and make sure election in Bosnia is free of “malign external influence.”

“During my visit to Banja Luka on Wednesday, all the remaining suspicions about the role of these forces have been completely eliminated. The facts are far more boring than fiction, however, the truth is that these are soldiers, not spies and that they are coming to Bosnia at the EUFOR’s request, not the initiative of the British Government,” he said.

The European Union Force Althea (EUFOR Althea) is a military deployment in Bosnia and Herzegovina which oversees the military implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the war in Bosnia.

Only four of the 600 soldiers currently serving EUFOR’s mission Altea in Bosnia are from the U.K.