Apart from Singapore, Bosnia is the only country to have free access to trade and services in the Turkish market, Bosnia's Foreign Trade Minister Mirko Sarovic said on the occasion of the visit of Bosnia's Presidency members to Turkey, where they are expected to sign the Free Trade Agreement with Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Saturday.
Right before the visit, Bosnian Serb leader and Presidency member Milorad Dodik, who is known for threatening that the Serb-dominated region of Republika Srpska (RS) would secede from Bosnia, said that the main reason of the visit is the improvement of economic relations between the two countries.
Deutsche Welle wrote that he also hoped Turkish politicians would suggest Bosnia first forms the government and then talks about the Membership Action Plan (MAP) for NATO.
“I expect to hear that from Erdogan, which would mean that Sarajevo politicians have overestimated themselves when it comes to obstructing the government formation process,” Dodik said.
However, Bosniak politicians recalled that Bosnia had already decided to activate the MAP and join the NATO, as is regulated by the Law on Defence.
When it comes to Bosnia’s NATO membership, its three largest ethnic groups stand divided on the issue. Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks support the country’s accession, while Bosnian Serbs are strictly against it, saying they will follow Serbia’s lead on this.
The Serb-dominated Republika Srpska (RS) entity's National Assembly even adopted a Declaration in 2017 stipulating the entity will remain militarily neutral and that they will not join any military alliance.
Dzevad Kucukalic, a political analyst from Sarajevo, said the relations between the two countries are traditionally good and that the meeting will result in improvement of cooperation, understanding and creation of new projects.
But he also believes that friendly relations between Turkey's Erdogan and Russia's Vladimir Putin could soften Dodik's pressures and threats of RS’ secession.
“It's interesting that Berlin and Ankara are talking about Bosnia and the region in just a few days. If there were no maximalist demands and exclusiveness, the meeting could result in the calming of the situation and better cooperation and faster accession of the countries of the region to the EU,” Kucukalic said. “Considering that Bosnia's EU accession process is uncertain, it's not that bad having good relations with countries like Turkey, Russia and China because of their investments, tourism, exports and the global politics.”
“Because of its historical debt to the US for stopping the war, Bosnia was biasedly oriented towards the West, and due to its geopolitical position towards the EU. This brought Bosnia into the position of becoming addicted to these two sides, not being able to understand that neither the US nor the EU are equal partners in this,” BHRT's journalist Benjamin Butkovic said for Deutsche Welle.
Butkovic concluded that a “small country” located between two civilization must lead a pragmatic policy, abandon the stories of friendly countries, because the world functions on the basis of interest, and take the most from the West and the East, and leave the global matters to global powers because it is no match for them.
