Foreigners trying to influence the character of an upcoming session of Bosnia’s three Presidency members is unfair, the Bosnian Serb member of the tripartite Presidency said on Monday as his Croat colleague was meeting with the US and UK ambassadors.
Croat Presidency member Zeljko Komsic met with US Ambassador Eric Nelson and UK Ambassador Matthew Field, but none of them gave statements to the mediaafterward.
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N1 also saw the Bosniak Presidency member Sefik Dzaferovic and his party leader, Bakir Izetbegovic, entering the building, but it was not immediately clear whether they also participated in the meeting.
Dodik speculated that the meeting might have something to do with a Presidency session scheduled for Tuesday and for which Dzaferovic said he expects the issue of sending Bosnia’s Annual National Programme (ANP) to NATO will be discussed.
“Then we are not talking about a sovereign state, but of servitude. That is why I never accepted to speak about this topic with anyone,” Dodik told ‘Glas Srpske’.
The ANP and Bosnia’s path toward NATO membership have been at the centre of the political bickering which prevented the forming of the government – in Bosnia officially called the Council of Ministers – from being formed since the October 2018 election.
The Bosniak and Croat members of the Presidency said that unless the candidate for prime minister, who is supposed to come from the ranks of the Bosnian Serb Alliance for Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), is prepared to fulfill obligations Bosnia took over years ago regarding NATO, they will not support him taking over the post.
Dodik and his candidate are vehemently against the country’s NATO membership.
In order to break the deadlock, the three leaders of the ruling parties which won the election, SNSD’s Milorad Dodik, Bosniak Bakir Izetbegovic from the Party for Democratic Action (SDA) and Croat Dragan Covic from the Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH), signed an agreement last week. It consists of 12 principles according to which the new government is to be formed, and NATO is mentioned in one of them but very vaguely.
Officials have since then been asking whether Bosnia is going to send its Annual National Programme (ANP) and take the next step toward NATO membership or not.
