BiH Foreign Ministry says EU stance on Mladic funeral shameful

"Five ministers from the Serbian Government were seated in the front row at the funeral, a convicted war criminal was given military honors, and his body was flown in on a Serbian Government aircraft," the ministry posted on X. "Your position on the funeral of a convicted war criminal is a disgrace to the entire European Union!," it added.

The ministry, headed by Elmedin Konakovic, was responding to a statement by European Commission spokeswoman Paula Pinho.

The ministry also tagged European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos and the European Commission's official account, asking: "Are these the European values you keep talking about?"

The Office of the High Representative in BiH (OHR) said BiH's future could not be built on the glorification of people responsible for the gravest crimes of the past. It noted that Mladic "was a convicted war criminal who died while serving a life sentence. He was found guilty by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia of genocide in Srebrenica, and crimes against humanity."

"Glorification of convicted war criminals, and denial of genocide and other war crimes create divisions, cause further pain to victims and their families, and undermine reconciliation.," the OHR said.

Bakir Izetbegovic, leader of BiH's largest Bosniak party (SDA), said the way Serbia's and Republika Srpska's political leadership, as well as the Serbian Orthodox Church, had dealt with Mladic showed that they had "not moved away from the Greater Serbian ideology that led to genocide, ethnic cleansing and other war crimes during the war in BiH".