A Bosnian lawmaker asked on Friday Croatia’s President that if she still believes there are 10,000 radical Muslims in Bosnia who could malignantly act towards Croatia, as she claimed before, then it would be fair to inform tourists planning to spend their summer vacation in Croatia of the danger as the border between the two countries is long and porous.
Croatia’s Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic warned over a year ago that Bosnia may be a terrorist hub, saying some 10,000 Muslim radicals are living there and may have bad intentions towards Croatia. Her claim sparked outrage in Bosnia. Some officials called on the Croatian President to come up with evidence for her claim.
RELATED NEWS
This month an investigative outlet from Sarajevo revealed an alleged Croatian intelligence plot that was aiming to prove her warning.
Witnesses, Muslim Bosnians, told the outlet that Croatian intelligence officers have tried to recruit them to publicly praise ISIS and transport weapons to central Bosnian praying sites. The weapons would then allegedly be found by police after a tip-off, which would prove Grabar-Kitarovic’s claim.
They said that if they refused to cooperate, they were denied working visas in Croatia and deported.
The story strained the relations between the two countries even further.
Croatian officials keep dismissing the alleged plot as nonsense.
Grabar-Kitarovic never repeated her warnings but Sasa Magazinovic, a Bosnian lawmaker wrote her a letter in which he asked whether she has changed her mind about the 10,000 radical Muslims.
If she did, he said, she should publicly say so and if she didn’t, then “I am urging you to think about the most efficient way how to warn tourists planning to spend their summer vacation in Croatia,” he said, adding Bosnia is willing to help with such a campaign.
Magazinovic wrote that the two countries have to join forces and prevent anything bad from happening on the territory of Croatia, which shares a 1,000 kilometre-long border with Bosnia and Herzegovina.
He added that he is convinced the Croatian president knows how porous the border is and how easy it is to cross it having in mind that Croatian law enforcement is solving the migrant crisis by transporting migrants from their territory to Bosnia, “for which Bosnian security agencies have proof.”
