The law treating the rights of veterans will be withdrawn from the parliamentary procedure and revised by the Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) entity, a competent parliamentary commission decided on Friday.

The FBiH Parliament's commission formed to harmonize two different versions of the law, one adopted by the House of Peoples and another by the House of Representatives, failed to reach agreement at the meeting held at the FBiH Government's field office in Mostar.

Dozens of veterans gathered in front of the building during the session demanding to be allowed to attend the session but their request was rejected.

The war veterans were told by commission chairman, Jasenko Tufekcic, who is also Deputy Speaker of the FBiH House of Peoples, there was no need for their presence at the session as the commission would not discuss the amendments and final version of the law but would only demand from the Parliament to hold a session on this issue by September 1.

The veterans of the FBiH, Bosnia's semi-autonomous entity shared by Bosniaks and Croats, have been protesting for months now, demanding that the Law on the Veteran Affairs is amended in a way that would stipulate the publication of the single veteran registry, veteran allowance and the abolition of the financing of veteran associations. The two parliamentary chambers adopted the law changes but in different forms, in the part referring to the veteran allowance, which was why a special commission was formed to harmonize the two law texts.

Until today, the commission was unable to complete the work.

According to N1's Djenana Kaminic, who reported live from Mostar, said it was likely that a new commission would be formed to deal with this matter.

Commission member, Davor Vuletic, Democratic Front's (DF) MP, said he would resign from the commission because, as he noted, he refused to be a part of the deceit of veterans.

The Friday session was not attended by the FBiH Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Ministers nor by the Parliament's collegia members except FBiH HoR Speaker, Edin Music.

The veterans were shouting “thieves, thieves” outside the building while the session was underway.

Zeljko Dujo, a veteran representing the Forgotten Veterans association, told N1 prior to the session he believed the veterans would be deceived once again.

“I expect one more deceit. If there is more of us war veterans, this is going to be our round. If we are fewer in number, it will be as they wish again. We expect our representatives to go in – to make some pressure and to have the law adopted the way we want. It is their goal to adopt the law the way they want,” Dujo said.

“It's not going to end like this. We are on the verge of conflict all the time. We will see when will the situation culminate. But we don't want any conflicts,” he added.

The commission convened a week ago in Mostar to solve the issue but it only concluded it would continue the work in an attempt to harmonize the law. Being dissatisfied with the session outcome, the veterans announced they would block the roads across the country but only briefly halted the traffic on the southern Bijaca border crossing.