Serbia's delegation led by President Aleksandar Vucic arrived in Bosnia and Herzegovina on Thursday. The visit kicked off with a meeting that was closed for media and was held at a monastery Osovica in Srbac, a town in the northern BiH, with Serbian Patriarch Pofirije and Republika Srpska, Bosnia's Serb entity, President Milorad Doik in attendance.

Following the meeting, Vucic told the reporters he could unveil no details of the talks and that the public will hear more on Friday at a press conference, following the session of the Republika Srpska-Serbia Council for Cooperation.

“These are not the easy times for Republika Srpska and Serbia, and we all need to review that together, we had long meetings today, the longest ones. No cameras, no mobile phones and other gadgets. Luckily, nothing works there in the monastery, and we also shut all that down so we could discuss in peace the strategic matters,” Vucic said.

He only briefly referred to the talks with the RS leadership, saying that they were long, open and not easy at all.

Vucic said that the situation is not simple because of “increasing pressure on both Serbia and Republika Srpska,” adding that they also talked about the situation caused by Russian aggression against Ukraine.

He also announced more intensive economic investments from Serbia in the RS.

“But what the people of the RS must know is that Serbia will not give up its people,” Vucic stressed, adding that there will never again be a blockade on the Drina river.

He noted that preserving the peace and stability is of the key interest but that this is getting more and more difficult at times of international pressures.

In his brief address Dodik blamed the Bosniaks for undermining the Dayton Peace Agreement while they use a narrative that someone else is doing that.

“Republika Srpska did nothing to undermine the Dayton (Agreement),” stressed Dodik.

He also mentioned the issue of foreign judges in the Constitutional Court of BiH, noting that they were supposed to leave five years after the 1995 peace agreement.

That is a legitimate political goal, he added.