According to Nikola Samardzic, a professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, the “destructive forces” of Turkey and Russia are acting through their "clients" in the region in order to break up Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Samardzic told N1 that he believes that BiH is not divided among its three major ethnic groups, the “constituent peoples”, but rather along the lines of “Turkish and Russian areas of interest”, which he warned also represents a threat to the European Union.

“The West obviously does not have enough capacity to face this threat, and I think that, above all, this is a threat to all Yugoslav peoples, but also to the European Union. Of course, these problems and threats are reflected where the EU is most weak, on its periphery,” he said.

Samardzic said that the consequence of such a state of affairs is the “unfinished process of the disintegration of Yugoslavia”, and it resulted in the region’s susceptibility to the influence of forces that aim to “destroy our institutions, destroy what little democratic capacity there is and all the possible imaginable sum of our relations, not only national, but also personal, cultural.”

He said that the Dayton Peace Agreement should not have been a permanent solution for the country.

“Its implementation implied that the EU and the USA, as well as Croatia and Serbia, would be strong partners in the development of peace, prosperity, stability and European democracy, and unfortunately, instead of those forces, that empty space was filled by Turkey and Russia. The most important political actors in Bosnia and Herzegovina are the clients of these two countries, and this is not the first time this is happening in the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” he said.

He said that the countries of former Yugoslavia are “unfinished states”, specifically Serbia, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

He said BiH is “falling apart at various internal seams” as it is governed by political elites who “base their future on that unfinished state.”

According to the professor, this is also the case in Serbia, where President Aleksandar Vucic often raises “old issues” not in order to solve problems but to do the opposite.

“We are facing such a cemented state of helplessness in society that it is changing because elites are in power who support each other in this state of incompleteness. It is a political caste system that was established thanks to the long duration of the Dayton Agreement, which should have been temporary, thanks to Serbia's inability to democratize and thanks to the penetration of destructive forces,” he said, once again repeating that he was referring to Russia, Turkey and China.

He explained that the goal of the Dayton Agreement was to stop a war that “ended with a genocide”, but that it is a solution that is “too complex and dysfunctional” in the long run.

“And it causes a kind of frustration in the majority Bosniak society, which is linked to Turkey as a destructive factor precisely because of this disappointment, and not because of historical ties,” he said, arguing that Turkey is “hindering the European integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

Samardzic made it clear that he does not believe that Turkey is truly committed to joining the EU.

“The processes initiated by Erdogan's party went in the opposite direction. Desecularization is giving up the concept of equality of all people, the concept of civil society and finally the concept of European integration,” he said.