Bosnia expels Serbian embassy officials and withdraws from regional declaration

The targeted officials are Milan Dulanovic, defense envoy in the Embassy of Serbia, and Danko Maksimovic, an advisor in the Embassy of Serbia.

Speaking at a press conference, Konakovic stated that he made the decision in accordance with the Regulation on Declaring an Undesirable and Unacceptable Person, which was adopted by the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2004 and signed by the then-chairman Dragan Covic.

"On an elaborated proposal of the Minister of Foreign Affairs for the heads of diplomatic missions, the BiH Presidency makes a decision on declaring ambassadors and consuls, and that is their jurisdiction," Konakovic quoted a part of the decision, adding that it further states: "The minister makes such a decision for other diplomatic and non-diplomatic personnel."

Konakovic then announced the decision regarding the two Serbian embassy officials: "I made the decision to declare Milan Dulanovic, defense envoy and military attaché in the Embassy of Serbia, and Danko Maksimovic, advisor in the Embassy of Serbia as persona non grata. These two people have a deadline of 48 hours to leave Bosnia and Herzegovina."

"They have been expelled from Bosnia and Herzegovina in accordance with the competences I have based on this authority, and we tell them to strictly abide by the rules of our country, Bosnia and Herzegovina," he added.

Konakovic also announced that approval was withdrawn on Tuesday for the joint declaration on good-neighborly relations and regional cooperation, which was scheduled to be signed on October 1 in Montenegro.

"Today we withdrew consent to the joint declaration on good neighborly relations and regional cooperation which should be signed in Montenegro on October 1, at a meeting which we would attend, because we will not sign such declarations and empty papers as long as we’re watching images from Serbia that we’ve been watching over the past few days - the Serbia of the nineties, which really warns us that things are not normal. We consider this inappropriate," Konakovic said.

He stated that the hosts in Montenegro, namely the Government of Montenegro, have been informed of this decision, and emphasized that there is no problem with the document itself.

"But we said this earlier: with such a Serbia, papers and platitudes about good-neighborly relations will not be signed until the situation in Serbia changes," he ordered.

Konakovic also addressed the reactions of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa.

"I saw the reaction of Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa, the repair of the damage inflicted on them by, probably, this PR agent of theirs, what do you call it, spokesperson. But I want to ask them a few serious questions, since even in that corrected statement they emphasized that it was a couple of individuals, and again avoided saying and pointing a finger at the most responsible person, whose name is Aleksandar Vucic, to ask them why they are doing this," Konakovic said.

He then directed a question to von der Leyen: "I’d ask Mrs. von der Leyen whether her commissioners, members of her government, so to speak, walk around the world, express their private views, and how she would behave if her associates had done the same thing?"

Finally, he concluded: "Had Aleksandar Vucic dismissed those who were sitting in the front row at the commemoration, the statements of von der Leyen and Costa might have made some sense, but this way they are meaningless."