The congratulation that US President Joe Biden sent to the members of the BiH Presidency on the occasion of 25 November, observed as Bosnia and Herzegovina's Statehood Day, is a kind of provocation, Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik said on Thursday.

A day after the newly-elected Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina received a message of congratulations from Washington on the occasion of Statehood Day, in which the US president pointed out that the USA strongly supports the integrity and sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dodik reacted by commenting that he could not describe it any other way than as a kind of provocation.

“I don't know what I would call it and all the employees of the US embassy know, that 25 November is not a holiday in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” said Dodik, as quoted by local media.

Bosnia and Herzegovina celebrates Statehood Day on 25 November as a national holiday, on the day when, at the session of the National Anti-Fascist Council (ZAVNOBiH) in 1943, the statehood was confirmed of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a future federal unit within the socialist Federation of Yugoslavia.

It was a holiday in the former Socialist Republic BiH, which the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina also took over after the declaration of independence, and based on the provisions of the Dayton Agreement, the laws from that country, including the one on holidays, are automatically recognised in the current state and are valid until they are replaced.

The authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina's entity called “Republika Srpska” persistently refuse to recognise those provisions of the Dayton Agreement on the national holidays, and Dodik is among the most vociferous opponents.

“Twenty-seven years since the end of the (1992-1995) war is enough time for the American representatives in Bosnia and Herzegovina to learn this and finally inform their government and the service that deals with sending congratulations on behalf of the US president,” said the president of the Serb entity, who has been under US sanctions for violating the Dayton Agreement and was banned from travelling to the US.

Dodik's close associate Zeljka Cvijanovic, who is the current chairperson of the tripartite BiH Presidency, commented on President Biden's congratulations somewhat more cautiously. Her office published a statement stating that despite all their efforts in the past years, they failed to convince the US Administration that BiH does not have a statehood day, so they will have to work more intensively on this in the coming period.

This week, Cvijanovic missed the meeting with Britain's special envoy for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sir Stuart Peach, who was on an official visit to Sarajevo. In April, the British government imposed sanctions on Cvijanović along with Dodik, also for violating the Dayton Agreement, and banned them from entering Britain.