The US ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina has sharply criticised Russia's attempts to stop the country's progress towards NATO membership, describing them as an unacceptable threat, while at the same time condemning the statements by the Serb member of the country's presidency in which he questioned the survival of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state.

After the Russian Embassy issued a statement earlier this week warning that Bosnia and Herzegovina's entry into NATO would be seen an act of hostility towards Moscow and would be met with an appropriate response, US Ambassador Eric Nelson told the Oslobođenje newspaper in an interview on Saturday that he was deeply surprised and disturbed by the Russian diplomatic statement because it contained a direct threat against a sovereign country.

The statement made by the Russian Embassy is unacceptable, it is a threat, Nelson said. He added that unlike Russia, the US was extending a hand of cooperation to Bosnia and Herzegovina, respecting the need for a consensus in the country on all important issues.

The Russian Embassy issued a statement on 18 March condemning NATO for spreading instability, extremism and chaos. “In the case of practical rapprochement of Bosnia and Herzegovina and NATO, our country will have to react to this hostile act,” it said.

The statement was immediately condemned by the Bosniak and Croat members of the presidency, Šefik Džaferović and Željko Komšić, Foreign Minister Bisera Turković and political parties based in Sarajevo, describing it as unacceptable meddling in Bosnia and Herzegovina's internal affairs. On the other hand, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, led by pro-Russian presidency chairman Milorad Dodik, dismissed their reactions as pro-Western.

Nelson also said that Dodik's constant advocacy of the secession of the Bosnian Serb entity Republika Srpska from Bosnia and Herzegovina was unacceptable.

Dodik said in the Republika Srpska parliament recently that in a year or two from now he would personally call a referendum for Republika Srpska's secession unless his demands for a return to the “original Dayton” were met, referring to the Dayton peace agreement that ended the country's 1992-1995 war. He sees Bosnia and Herzegovina as a symbolic state union, with all the power concentrated in the hands of its two entities – Republika Srpska and the Bosniak-Croat Federation.

Nelson reiterated US support for Bosnia and Herzegovina's territorial integrity and sovereignty and its ambition to join the European Union. He said that the US's attitude towards Bosnia and Herzegovina is a constant regardless of who is in the White House, and that President Joe Biden's knowledge of the situation in the Western Balkans can only further strengthen it.

Commenting on his personal mediation in talks on amending electoral legislation between the leaders of the Croat HDZ BiH party and the Bosniak SDA party, Dragan Čović and Bakir Izetbegović, Nelson said he was trying to encourage political leaders to establish a state-level task force that would develop an institutional framework for the reform of electoral legislation.

He said that the US wanted amendments to the electoral law to be decided together by representatives of the state parliament, government and the central election commission despite the fact that HDZ questions the commission's legitimacy.

The US ambassador said he was confident the joint task force would be able to agree on new election rules by the end of this year, after which general elections would be held under new rules in 2022.