The head of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Islamic community, Husein Kavazovic, on Tuesday called on Croatia and Serbia not to ignore the role of his country and take it into account when advocating or conducting processes that should lead to regional reconciliation and lasting normalisation of relations.

In a statement for the media, Kavazovic said that he was following the “Serbo-Croat reconciliation initiative”, without explaining what exactly he was referring to, but adding that he supports positive talks even though he believes that they are meaningless without Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Kavazovic stressed that it was Bosniaks who paid the biggest price in the 1990s wars, noting that “during the four years of aggression,” both Croatia and Serbia, “often through joint efforts, tried to carve up Bosnia and Herzegovina and join its ethnically cleansed areas to their own national states.”

Kavazovic said that he was nevertheless glad that 25 years after those events “voices of reconciliation are coming from Belgrade and Zagreb.”

“We welcome such initial steps, believing in a brighter future in this region. We hope that all peoples, as well as political and religious leaders in the Balkans, are mature enough to turn a new page in the history of our peoples. We also welcome the fact that the first voices of reconciliation are coming from Serbia and Croatia, as the two biggest former Yugoslav countries and the two most responsible ones for what happened in the 1990s, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” said the dignitary.

He added that reconciliation would not be possible if it was not sincere and if it excluded Bosnia and Herzegovina and its leaders, as well as if it was not based on principles of truth and justice and on identifying evil and its perpetrators.