Kosovo poses the main issue but Republika Srpska (RS) is still one of the biggest national issues of Serbia, said Milorad Dodik, Bosnian Serb leader and President of RS, Bosnia's Serb-dominated entity.

Dodik said on Wednesday in Belgrade, where he visited the memorial room to Kosovo victims, that RS will not give up on its statehood in the unitary Bosnia and Herzegovina “no matter how hard it may be now.”

Republika Srpska is one of two semi-autonomous entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which the Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the 1992-95 conflict in that country had recognised as a constitutional and legal unit, with governmental functions and powers.

The ethnic Serbs of Bosnia, who dominate the RS, are one of three constituent peoples being entitled to equal rights and representation in the authority with other two main ethnic groups of the country – the Bosniaks and Croats.

“I promote the unity of the Serb people and I don't hide that, I remain devoted to the idea of strengthening of the Serb identity,” Dodik underlined.

The Serbs did not pay too much attention to their state identity because, he said, “they always shared the freedom with other peoples, selflessly giving them their own states.”