Bosnia will receive any returning fighters from Syrian and Iraqi battlefields who have Bosnian citizenship, and they will be treated according to law, deputy Security Minister Mijo Kresic said on Wednesday.

“They will be treated according to our laws and the evidence we have and which is given to us by our partner countries. We are part of the global coalition for the battle against ISIS since the very beginning, we have been part of that process for a long time and we will fulfil all out obligations from our participation in that coalition,” Kresic said.

The deputy minister said that Bosnia must have a better systematic response to the security challenges the influx of waves of migrants carries with it.

The fact that the new government has still not been formed since the October 2018 election is making this more difficult, he said.

“We will have to form a new government and then show that we are a credible partner to the European Union and international organisations,” he said, adding that authorities should also determine what they did wrong until now and correct it.

The influx of migrants will probably decrease because winter is approaching, he argued.

“That will give us time to work on some things,” he said, arguing that Bosnia should have a dialogue with neighbouring countries on how to respond to the migrant crisis.

“It is not good for Bosnia and Herzegovina to become a ‘hotspot’ for migrants, but it seems that we will be in such a situation at some point,” he said.

He also touched upon a recent statement by French President Emmanuel Macron, who called Bosnia a “ticking time-bomb.”

“The French intelligence agency and their law enforcement agencies are very powerful and big and this should be analysed and taken seriously. We need to talk about it and look at it as one more view and opinion on Bosnia and Herzegovina, although it saddens me,” he said.