The Croat and Bosniak members of Bosnia’s tripartite Presidency criticised the Prime Minister of neighbouring Serbia for “destabilising” relations between the two countries by publically comparing the border situation between Kosovo and Albania with the one between Bosnia and Serbia.
Serbia’s Ana Brnabic made the statement on Friday while talking about the relations between Belgrade and Pristina. She said that the two were increasingly divided on finding common ground regarding Kosovo’s status, as well as the status of ethnic Serbs living there.
In November 2018, Kosovo raised tariffs on products coming from Serbia and Bosnia, the only two countries which have not granted it recognition as an independent state, by 100 per cent. Serbia also objects to Kosovo establishing its own army.
Referring to a statement Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama made in his New Year’s speech when he announced an initiative to “open the border” between Kosovo and Albania, Brnabic said that “obviously” the initiative regarding the Kosovo-Albania border is “on the table”, but that the same cannot be said about the border between Serbia and Republika Srpska (RS), Bosnia’s Serb-dominated semi-autonomous entity which was established with the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement when the Bosnian war ended.
The Croat member of Bosnia’s Presidency, Zeljko Komsic, reacted on the same day, saying that Bosnia’s borders cannot be questioned, regardless of what is happening between Albania and Kosovo.
“Why push your own country into unneeded verbal conflicts with Bosnia and Herzegovina?” Komsic asked.
“Instead of turning toward cooperation, Euro-Atlantic integrations and stabilisation of the region, they are consistently trying to draw ridiculous parallels between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo,” he said, adding that such statements are not only bad for Serbia, but also for relations in the entire region.
“The sovereignty, integrity and especially the borders of Bosnia and Herzegovina are not questionable and any relativisation of any state prerogative Bosnia has is, at best, rude,” he said.
“We don’t get involved in the relations between Kosovo and Albania,” Komsic said, requesting that Serbia’s officials refrain from making similar statements in the future and from “playing with Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
Bosniak Presidency member Sefik Dzaferovic also reacted, saying that drawing parallels between Kosovo and Bosnia is “unacceptable, damaging and dangerous.”
“Such statements, which question the territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its internationally recognised borders, do not contribute to the improvement of the relations between the two countries. To the contrary, they send bad messages and needlessly create tensions,” Dzaferovic said.
