The Peace Implementation Council Steering Board (PIC SB), a body overseeing the implementation of Bosnia’s 1995 peace agreement, repeated on Wednesday that it fully supports Bosnia’s international administrator, the High Representative, in performing his tasks, but Russia distanced itself from the communique as it has been doing for years.

The PIC SB reaffirmed its “unequivocal commitment to the territorial integrity and fundamental structure of BiH as a single, sovereign state comprising two entities” and restated that the entities “have no right to secede from BiH and only exist legally by virtue of the BiH Constitution.”

The PIC expressed support for the High Representative, Austrian diplomat Valentin Inzko, whom the Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik and the Russian Federation want to see leaving Bosnia together with his office.

The body welcomed the recent local elections, saying they were executed in a peaceful manner but called for an improvement of the electoral process.

“Weaknesses that allow for the manipulation of out of country voter registration in particular must be urgently addressed and resolved, and allegations of fraud must be investigated,” the document said.

It called on Bosnian authorities to improve their coordination in the fights against COVID-19 and its economic consequences.

It also urged local leaders to agree on an electoral reform that would respect the rulings of the Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights which ordered Bosnia to allow all citizens to run for all offices in the country as opposed to just Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats.

Bosnia’s leaders should also take concrete steps towards reconciliation, including through joint commemorations.

The document called for the full implementation of the results of the general elections from two years ago and for effective cooperation among all levels of authority in BiH in solving the migrant crisis and border security.

It called for a fair distribution across the whole country of the responsibility for the humanitarian accommodation of migrants and asylum seekers.

So far the Republika Srpska entity has refused to accommodate any of the migrants passing through the country on their way to the EU.

At the bottom of the document, the Russian Federation added that it “does not agree with this Communiqué.”