Serbia’s Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic met on Friday in Belgrade with his Bosnian counterpart Elmedin Konakovic, with whom he discussed mutual relations between the two countries, economic cooperation and solving open issues, Anadolu Agency reported.

Dacic stated at a joint press conference that Serbia and Bosnia have a lot of room for improvement of mutual relations.

“First of all, it depends on the political will and the desire to establish mutual common interests. This means that we have to see which issues are open and we need to solve them, such as the issue of the state border, the use of the water potential of the Drina river, as well as the issue of economic cooperation. I will remind you that Bosnia and Herzegovina is among Serbia's largest foreign trade partners. Peace and stability in Bosnia and Herzegovina is vitally interested, among other things, because a large number of Serbs living there,” Dacic noted.

He said that BiH and Serbia have several disputed points, such as the issue of the area around the hydroelectric power plant on the Drina river, as well as two villages.

“I think that practical and sustainable solutions should be found here. There is, of course, the succession of the former state of Yugoslavia, the issue of missing persons, the use of the large hydro potential of the Drina river, and the construction of infrastructure projects. A vital issue is of course the Belgrade-Sarajevo highway, because I think it is perhaps an unprecedented case that there is no good infrastructural communication between two major cities in Europe as is the case between Belgrade and Sarajevo,” Dacic said.

He added that he expects Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia to define common interests in the coming period and to work together on this.

“Serbia accepts any agreement that the three peoples and two entities reach on their further future. We are interested in intensive bilateral relations, political dialogue, in building trust and solidarity between the two countries, which includes cooperation with the central and entity authorities,” the head of Serbia’s diplomacy said.

Bosnia’s Foreign Minister previously met with the Prime Minister of Serbia Ana Brnabic, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, Minister for European Integration Tanja Miscevic.

Brnabic invites Bosnia to join the Open Balkans initiative

During the meeting with Prime Minister Brnabic the two talked about the improvement of bilateral relations, economic and regional cooperation, infrastructure projects and political dialogue.

Brnabic assessed that economic relations are good, but that there is room for further improvement of cooperation in the fields of infrastructure and energy, in which she sees particularly great potential for cooperation.

Serbian Prime Minister congratulated Konakovic on Bosnia obtaining the candidate status for membership in the European Union, noting that this is a good signal for the entire region.

She underlined that Serbia is ready to give Bosnia all the necessary help on that path which she said is complex and lengthy.

Brnabic asked Konakovic to consider the possibility of Bosnia joining the Open Balkans initiative and emphasised that membership in this initiative would contribute to strengthening economic cooperation and the economic welfare of all citizens of the region.

The meetings took place as part of Konakovic’s visits to the countries of the region. He spent the previous days on official visits to Croatia and Montenegro.