Bakir Izetbegovic, the leader of the Bosniak-majority Party of Democratic Action (SDA), commented on the recent hearing on situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina before the US Senate Foreign Policy Committee, showing strong disagreement with the statement by US special envoy Gabriel Escobar.

“Maybe such interpretations could be offered to superficial connoisseurs of the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina but the citizens of this country rightly and with concern ask themselves what the special envoy is basing such claims on? They simply do not correspond to the truth,” Izetbegovic wrote in a post on social networks.

Addressing the committee on Thursday, Escobar welcomed the formation of government in Bosnia's Federation entity (FBiH), praising international peace envoy, High Representative Christian Schmidt for his role in that.

US envoys Chollet, Escobar: Dodik, inflammatory rhetoric threaten peace in BiH

“The High Representative used the Bonn powers in October 2022 to break a four-year deadlock on FBiH entity Government formation. The US strongly supported these difficult but necessary decisions. With the new state and entity level governments in place, we can help BiH leaders implement long overdue reforms and advance their citizens’ Euro-Atlantic aspirations,” said Escobar.

He also expressed concerns over the “persistent secession and anti-democratic actions” by President of Serb-majority Republika Srpska entity Milorad Dodik, stressing that the US will work with its European partners to deter Dodik from pursuing “de facto separation and limit resources to fund his divisive practices.”

Commenting on the statement, Izetbegovic showed strong disagreement with the US envoy, stressing that the High Representative's decision did not open the door to a more functional Federation entity. He also disagreed with Escobar's remark that the lack of the government in the Federation allowed Republika Srpska to “dominate the state.”

“It is not the mandate of the FBiH Government to confront the attacks of Republika Srpska entity on the Dayton Peace Agreement,” said Izetbegovic, whose SDA party is out of majority at the state level for the first time after decades of rule. Also, the Federation entity prime minister who was nominated by the SDA in 2015 was now replaced by a candidate of the new majority that the SDA is not a part of.

Izetbegovic stressed that Republika Srpska did dominate in something and that is the “destructive policies that jeopardized the stability of BiH and the region, obstructed work of the state institutions, slowed down development and integration processes.”