American sanctions on Marinko Cavara, the President of Bosnia's Federation entity, are the “product of attempts by the Bosniak radical unitarists, who present unilateral stances and description of internal problems in Bosnia and Herzegovina to the international officials,” the leading ethnic Croat party HDZ BiH said in response to the decision that the US Department of the Treasury announced on Monday.

“We emphasise, clearly and unambiguously, that the actions of President of the FBiH Marinko Cavara have never indicated a threat to the Dayton (Peace Agreement) and as the strongest political party representing the legitimate will of the Croat people we stand behind all political decisions, especially the non-compliance with the Constitution and legislation,” Cavara's political party said in a statement.

It also emphasised that the HDZ BiH as a political party has always led the way in defending the Dayton Peace Agreement (the peace deal which ended the 1992-95 Bosnian war and introduced the country's Constitution), which is the direction that Cavara has been following.

“The said sanctions are obvisously the product of attempts by the Bosniak radical unitarists, who present unilateral stances and description of internal problems in Bosnia and Herzegovina to the international officials. We regret because these sanctions were forces exactly because of the stances presented by one polity in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The HDZ BiH will not give up in defending the fundaments of our homeland and its building up in the spirit of Dayton and through the Euro-Atlantic integration,” the statement said.

The US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control has added by its latest decision two more Bosnian officials, including Cavara, to the list of sanctioned individuals who, as the decision says, “threatened the stability of the region by undermining the Dayton Peace Accords and democratic processes or institutions.”