Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Presidency Chairman Sefik Dzaferovic’s office issued a statement regarding Serb Presidency member Milorad Dodik’s refusal to approve the use of BiH Armed Forces’ (AF BiH) helicopters if fighting fires across the country.

They say that in this mandate, the BiH Presidency held 24 regular sessions, which were attended by its three members and the 25th session is scheduled for March 31, 2022. At the same time, 150 extraordinary sessions were held, of which 8 with the physical presence of members of the Presidency of BiH and 142 by telephone.

“Extraordinary telephone sessions dealt with the use of the BiH Armed Forces to extinguish fires at the request of local civilian authorities. Regarding the current requests for firefighting, immediately after receiving the request on three occasions by e-mail, the BiH Presidency Chairman asked for the consent of BiH Presidency members to use the resources of the AF BiH for firefighting, according to the same procedure as in the previous 142 sessions,” the Presidency said.

“Each time, BiH Presidency Chairman Sefik Dzaferovic and member Zeljko Komsic, gave their consent, while Presidency member Milorad Dodik did not give his consent to anyone. In addition, we note that during the last year, several extraordinary sessions were held with the physical presence of BiH Presidency members, which discussed the use of AF BiH resources for firefighting. Presidency member Dodik did not attend or give consent to any of these sessions, which is why the use of AF BiH resources for the purpose of assisting local civilian bodies and the population could not be approved,” Dzaferovic’s office pointed out.

The office concluded by calling on Milorad Dodik to immediately give his consent for the use of helicopters of the AF BiH in order to help put out fires in the country.