Bakir Izetbegovic, the leader of the strongest Bosniak party in BiH - Democratic Action Party (SDA) spoke Tuesday with Matthew Palmer, the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and State Department Special Envoy for the Balkans about the country's NATO accession and the recently held Mostar elections.

In a telephone conversation, Izetbegovic and Palmer jointly assessed that additional efforts are needed to accelerate Bosnia's European and NATO accession process.

The SDA leader pointed out that the arrival of the new American administration is expected to increase the US’ presence and their support for the reform and integration processes in the country.

The topic of the conversation was also the end of the election process in Mostar, and the two agreed that it is necessary to start solving the accumulated problems in that city as soon as possible.

Palmer expressed the expectation that talks between the SDA and the leading Croat party in the country – the Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH) on the implementation of the political part of the Mostar Agreement, which refers to the reforms of the Election Law and the implementation of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights and the BiH Constitutional Court, will continue soon.

“Izetbegović emphasized that the SDA and HDZ agreed to established principles that imply a balance between the civil and ethnic principles but will not be able to create a final solution on their own. He pointed out that, given the complexity of the problem, a stronger involvement of representatives of all parliamentary parties, EU and US representatives, but also the non-governmental sector and domestic and foreign legal experts is needed to reach a solution in line with European standards,“ the SDA statement said.