Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Sunday he is “very concerned” about Bosnia’s Serb-majority region of Republika Srpska (RS) as he criticised Bosniak and Croat politicians and media in the country except for Bosnian Croat leader Dragan Covic “who has a fair relationship toward Serbs.”
Vucic said that he spoke about the latest political crisis in Bosnia with Milorad Dodik, the member of Bosnia’s tripartite Presidency elected from the semi-autonomous RS entity.
“Milorad Dodik has familiarised me with their stances. I only told him what I think about our position – we will always be with you and help you,” Vucic told TV Prva.
The crisis emerged after the Constitutional Court ruled that a law the RS adopted unconstitutional. The law gave Republika Srpska ownership over all the public agricultural land in its territory.
The Constitutional Court ruled that this land should belong to the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The RS National Assembly on Monday instructed all RS representatives in state institutions to stop participating in any decision-making processes until the adoption of a law that would remove all foreign judges from the Constitutional Court. This means that state institutions will effectively be blocked.
Dodik argued that the foreign judges keep siding with Bosniaks and working against Republika Srpska.
Covic, the leader of the strongest Bosnian Croat party, Bosnia's Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH), has expressed support for Dodik's demand to remove foreigners from the court, arguing that it is time that Bosnian nationals take over those positions.
“I am very concerned about the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and I will not another word,” Vucic said.
However, he went on to say that both Bosniak and Croat politicians and media in Bosnia keep “preaching” to him, excluding Covic, who Vucic said had “a fair relationship with Serbs.”
Covic and Dodik have been political allies since the 2018 general election in Bosnia.
Vucic also criticised Bosnia's politicians who say they agree with Kosovo’s independence but can not grant it recognition “because of Republika Srpska.”
Bosnia never recognised Kosovo as an independent state, primarily because Bosnian Serbs oppose it.
“Wait, so Kosovo is for you independent, but you want to take away all rights from Republika Srpska, even the right to exist, as you said in the SDA Declaration?” Vucic said, referring to a declaration of goals the main Bosniak party, the Party for Democratic Action (SDA), adopted in September.
He complained that Bosniak officials are meanwhile discussing a “special status” for Sandzak, a Bosniak-majority part of Serbia, with the Bosniak representative Sulejman Ugljanin there.
“It is not even enough for them that I am being fair and saying that I respect the integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the RS within it, so I guess I should take a club and hit Milorad Dodik over the head for them to be satisfied,” he said.
