The reason why Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik agreed to sign a document which progresses Bosnia’s efforts to join NATO is that he was promised that the US would lift the sanctions it imposed on him, opposition leader Mirko Sarovic said on Friday.
“The document which the members of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, including Milorad Dodik, signed and sent to the headquarters of this military alliance initiates Bosnia’s path toward membership in NATO, and that is 100 percent sure,” the leader of the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) said.
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Dodik, the Bosnian Serb member of the tripartite Presidency and the leader of the ruling party in Bosnia’s Serb-majority region of Republika Srpska (RS), agreed to Bosnia sending its ‘Reform Programme’ to NATO. The document was seen as a compromise solution since Bosnian Serb leadership did not agree to the country sending its Annual National Programme (ANP) as it would represent the next step toward joining the alliance, which is unpopular among Bosnian Serbs.
But according to Sarovic, the Reform Programme is “even worse” for Bosnian Serbs than the ANP because it includes the establishment of new institutions.
“In that document (ANP) Republika Srpska was mentioned several times while in the Reform Programme it is not mentioned even once. In this document, one man decides on everything. Not to mention that it says that Republika Srpska will have to register all the military property to Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Sarovic said.
The opposition leader argued that Dodik “agreed to this betrayal of the interests of Republika Srpska because he was promised that America would lift the sanctions against him, which Dodik is trying to get rid of without success for a long while already.”
Dodik, who has been advocating the secession of Republika Srpska for years, was blacklisted by the US administration in 2017 for allegedly breaching the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement which ended Bosnia’s war.
“I can not remember that there was any bigger betrayal of the Serb people,” Sarovic said.
