Serbia's Defence Minister Aleksandar Vulin made an “aggressive attack on sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina” by saying that Republika Srpska (RS), Bosnia's Serb-dominated entity, “might not have an army but that the Serb people do,” the main Bosniak party, SDA, said on Monday.

“Vulin would obviously like to say that the Army of the Republic of Serbia is also the army of Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, intentionally ignoring the fact that the state and not the peoples have armies,” the party said, stressing that the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina are a military of all peoples in the country, including Serbs.

Such words might threaten the stability of the entire region, the SDA stressed.

Speaking at a traditional cultural event on Sunday, dedicated to Bosnia-born Serb author Petar Kocic, minister Vulin said that Republika Srpska might not have an army but that the Serb people do.

“You cannot have the national issue of Albanians solved without solving the national issue of Serbs,” said Vulin, the minister of the ruling SNS party in Serbia.

Although a cultural manifestation, the event was used to convey political messages.

Milorad Dodik, a hardline Bosnian Serb leader who has been advocating for years the Serb region's secession and its merging with Serbia, said the border between the two countries was unnatural.

“Nobody has ever managed to create the border with Serbia, not even the one on the Drina river which is formal but we don't see it. Every time I pass it I feel discomfort because it is there. I will keep on dreaming the dream of all of you that this border will not exist one day,” Dodik said addressing the gathering, held near the northwestern city of Banja Luka, the administrative seat of RS institutions.

Bosnia consists of two semi-autonomous regions, a Serb-dominated Republika Srpska and the Federation shared by the Bosniaks and Croats. The three major ethnic groups share the power in the state-level institutions in accordance with the Constitution.