Bosnian Justice Minister Josip Grubesa said that the Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BIH), the party that nominated him into the Council of Ministers, demands reciprocity when it comes to visa requirements for the citizens of Saudi Arabia and that this is the only reason why he refused to vote for the alleviation of visa regulations for Saudis, dismissing Islamophobia allegations.
Bosnian state government, formally the Council of Ministers, failed in the second attempt to facilitate the visa requirements for the citizens of Saudi Arabia, proposed by Foreign Minister Bisera Turkovic.
Following the government's session on Friday, Turkovic accused the HDZ BiH ministers of blocking her proposal although the idea got support from the tourism community from all parts of the country and said this would make BiH lose “millions of marks worth income.”
She called on minister Grubesa to “explain it to the citizens why BiH will not collect millions of marks from VAT.”
“Following this shameful decision, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of BiH will take urgent measures in order to, within the existing regime, conduct the visa issuing process of issuing for the citizens of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia more efficiently and faster, and in order to mitigate the consequences of such a harmful decision by HDZ BiH ministers in the Council of Ministers of BiH,” said Turkovic, the Bosniak minister who was nominated to the Council of Ministers by the Party of Democratic Action (SDA).
But, minister Grubesa dismissed all the accusations, noting that the nationals of Bosnia and Herzegovina need visas when travelling to Saudi Arabia so he could not see a reason why those coming from that country to Bosnia and Herzegovina would not need visas too.
“Any speculations about Islamophobic minister or anything else is out of the question,” the minister stressed without specifying who made the speculations.
“We know that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is helping BiH a lot. We have a specific example of the construction of a part of the hospital in Mostar,” he added.
Previously, when the Council of Ministers had the same item on agenda and failed to adopt it due to the opposition from the HDZ BiH ministers, Grubesa said they were only protecting the European path of BiH “regardless of how it is presented in public.”
Grubesa also said they were following the European Union's position on this matter and recalled that Saudi Arabia nationals can freely enter BiH if they had valid visas for any EU member state or the USA.
Today, the Council of Ministers unanimously adopted a decision on facilitating the entry regulations for foreigners during the pandemic.
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