Relations between Bosnia and Croatia should be grounded on mutual respect and trust, but the way Croatia is acting now is not good, said Croat member of Bosnia and Herzegovina's tripartite Presidency Zeljko Komsic.
Komsic's comment came as a response to the statement of Croatia's top official, who said he would keep on demanding that the Bosnian Croats are able to elect their own representatives to the state Presidency. Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said Saturday he would “personally” not let go of this matter.
According to Komsic, such stance of Zagreb officials was not good.
“Good neighbourly relations between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia should be grounded on mutual respect and trust, after which we could open all issues that we should discuss as neighbours,” Komsic told N1.
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“However, what Croatia is doing to Bosnia and Herzegovina is not good, such activity annuls mutual trust and goes deeply into the denial of Bosnia and Herzegovina's sovereignty through denial of its sovereign government voted in the election,” he added.
Komsic came into the spotlight after being elected to the state tripartite Presidency as a Croat member. His election was strongly disapproved by the left-leaning Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH) and its leader Dragan Covic, Komsic's main rival in the run for the Presidency.
HDZ BiH leader, who was openly supported by Croatian PM during the election campaign, claimed Komsic was elected owing to the Bosniaks’ votes and therefore was not a legitimate representative of the Bosnian Croats.
Both Covic and Zagreb demand that the issue is solved through changes to Bosnian Election Law and implementation of a court ruling in the Ljubic case, which, in reality, does not treat the Presidency but election of delegates in the House of Peoples of the Federation (FBiH), Bosnia's semi-autonomous entity shared by Bosniaks and Croats.
Bosnia consists of two semi-autonomous entities, the Federation (FBiH) that is shared by Bosniaks and Croats, and Republika Srpska (RS), dominated by Serbs. While the Election Law stipulates that the Bosniaks and the Croat members are elected in the FBiH, there is no law provision banning the Bosniaks from voting for a Croat member or the other way round.
The Serb member in the Presidency is elected from RS entity.
