Austria is part of the EU but not a NATO member state, and I found it important that I should explain to the Austrian Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache the reasons why Bosnia should remain militarily neutral, Bosnia's tripartite Presidency member and Serb leader Milorad Dodik said, on Monday, after the meeting with Strache.
“I want to confirm that this was the continuation of our meetings and in this regard, we are considering issues related to our economic and political cooperation. This was an opportunity to inform Strache about the situation in Bosnia and for me to get to know the prospect of European elections, which can also affect in the situation in the country,” Dodik said after the Monday meeting in Vienna. “Bosnia wants to move towards the EU and it is is very important to us that Austria supports Bosnia's candidate status after the European Commission's opinion.”
This was not the first time Dodik, a hard-line nationalist, met with Heinz-Christian Strache, the right-wing leader of the Freedom Party of Austria.
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The two also met in February 2019, when the meeting was attended by Itali's Deputy PM and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who is the Federal Secretary of the right-wing Northern League.
Back then, Dodik who is vehemently against Bosnia's NATO membership, also said that Austria was part of the EU but not NATO. These statements are in line with the Military Neutrality Resolution adopted by Bosnia's Serb-dominated semi-autonomous part of Republika Srpska in 2017.
“We don't have any open issues with Austria with which we have good cooperation. We spoke of the need to define new cooperation at the ministerial level. Of course, we touched upon the topic of security which is interesting to both sides,” the Presidency Chairman said.
He added he informed the Vice-Chancellor that people who were members of ISIS are now returning to Bosnia which “represents a real threat.”
“We also talked about migrations. Our position is that they are making a new migrant route across Bosna. Some 50,000 migrants could enter the country this year alone, and that's a serious problem for Bosnia,” he noted.
