Matthew Palmer, the US special envoy for the Western Balkans, condemned the proposal to appoint Bosnian Serb politician Nikola Spiric, who was blacklisted by US authorities over corruption suspicion, in the parliamentary anti-corruption commission.
A statement issued on Friday by Bosnian Foreign Affairs Ministry reporting on minister Bisera Turkovic's visit to Washington said Spiric's possible appointment in the State Parliament's commission for fight against corruption was mentioned in one of the meetings and that the US official condemned such intention.
The US State Department said in September 2018 that it banned Bosnian Serb lawmaker Nikola Spiric and members of his immediate family from entering the US over Spiric's alleged “involvement in significant corruption.”
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Spiric is the Vice-President of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), the party in power in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated semi-autonomous Republika Srpska (RS) entity, and a lawmaker in the House of Representatives.
The leader of Spiric’s party and Serb member of Bosnia's tripartite Presidency Milorad Dodik was blacklisted by the US as well a year before for obstructing the implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords which ended the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
