People should stop wasting time by attacking Bosnia's Serb-majority Republika Srpska (RS) region, RS President Zeljka Cvijanovic, arguing that those who do are fighting something they cannot defeat.

“We always knew how to respond to such attacks, and we will always respond accordingly,” she said.

She argued that Milorad Dodik, the Chairman of Bosnia's tripartite Presidency who is also the leader of the party she belongs to, “is fully aware of all the processes in the country” and that this is the reason why he had been announcing that the region would seek to secede should an initiative challenging the name of Republika Srpska be assessed by the Constitutional Court.

the RS will conduct a referendum and secede from Bosnia if the Constitutional Court accepts the Democratic Action Party's (SDA) initiative to discuss the name change of the RS entity,” Cvijanovic said. “We must send a message to everyone attacking the RS and show that as strong as their attacks may be, our response will be equally powerful.”

The controversial initiative on the name of the RS came from the main Bosniak party in the country, the Party for Democratic Action (SDA), which argued that the name ‘Republika Srpska’ is discriminatory toward non-Serbs living in that region.

The name is, according to the SDA, being abused, because when translated into the Serbian language it means ‘The Serb Republic,’ which is not in line with the Constitution.

Namely, Bosnia's Constitution is part f the Dayton Peace Agreement which ended the 1992-1995 war and was originally written in the English language. When it came to naming the country's two semi-autonomous entities, Serb representatives suggested the name of Republika Srpska.

This suggestion was partially adopted by other parties to the agreement, allowing it to be named as ‘Republika Srpska,’ but the name was not translated into English, thus avoiding any chance of it being wrongly interpreted.

Dodik said on Monday that the RS will hold a referendum and secede from Bosnia if the Constitutional Court accepts the SDA name-change initiative.