Defining the Serbian southern province of Sandzak as a separate territorial and political entity with legislative, executive and judicial power is a minimum for the biological survival and political existence of the Bosniak people there, Sulejman Ugljanin, the president of the Sandzak Party of Democratic Action (SDA), said in Sarajevo on Sunday.
Speaking at the regular session of the Association of Independent Intellectuals Circle 99, where he spoke as a keynote speaker on the topic “Sandzak's autonomy – what is it and why,” he said that based on a number of international solutions for the Yugoslav crisis, his party made a proposal how to resolve the status of Sandzak as part of the political reform of the Republic of Serbia.
“The SDA submitted this proposal to the President of the Republic of Serbia, the Parliament and the Government of that country, the Montenegrin Parliament Speaker and other factors dealing with this issue, as well as to international representatives of the EU, USA and the UN,” Ugljanin noted.
“The feelings of Sandzak citizens, especially the Bosniaks who perceive Bosnia as their national country, is grounded in historical, legal and political facts. That is why I want to present this platform to the broader Bosnian public, today. Defining Sandzak as a separate territorial and political entity with legislative, executive and judicial powers is a minimum for the survival and political existence of the Bosniak people in Sandzak,” Ugljanin said.
He stressed that Sandzak's special status as a “territorial-political community of equal citizens and peoples, in which Albanians, Bosniaks, Montenegrins and Serbs are constituent peoples, is the key to resolving all political and territorial disputes between neighbouring states and peoples in the Balkans and should be a nucleus for the regional stability and cooperation.
“Following this policy of peace and understanding for a lasting solution to the Yugoslav crisis, the citizens of Sandzak are vitally interested in the sovereign Bosnia, which would, through bilateral relations, define the status of Bosniaks and all other peoples living in Sandzak. In that sense, Sandzak as a community of equal citizens and peoples would be a model for resolving all territorial and political disputes between states and peoples in the Balkans,” Ugljanin concluded.
