BELGRADE (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd October, 2021) Milorad Dodik, a Serb member of the Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) presidency, said on Thursday that the embassy of the United States is the epicenter of instability in the country as it exerts political pressure.
The US Embassy has repeatedly criticized Dodik, and published on September 30 a transcript of his conversation with the State Department's special representative for the Balkans, Gabriel Escobar, in which Dodik can be heard responding to the threat of sanctions with obscenities.
"The US Embassy in Sarajevo is the epicenter of instability in BiH, which can also be seen in relation to (High Representative in BiH) Christian Schmidt, who acts as a private person in BiH, not as a High Representative," Dodik was quoted as saying by the Republic of Srpska news Agency (SRNA).
Dodik further noted that "everyone in BiH will be better off" if the US Embassy in Sarajevo "stops threats, lectures on the constitution and compliance with the Dayton Agreement." He also criticized American diplomats for working on establishing a "Muslim state" of BiH.
Relations between official Sarajevo and Bosnian Serbs in Banja Luka, the capital of Republika Srpska, have deteriorated in the past few months over the adoption of amendments to the country's criminal code which criminalize denial of the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica, leading to Dodik threatening to create his own army.
On Monday, Dodik voted against all proposals put forward by the members of the BiH collective presidency, formed by three members representing the country's Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian populations, as the internal tensions in the country rise.
In July, former top international envoy observing the fulfillment of the peace agreement which ended the Bosnian war, Valentin Inzko, set jail terms of up to five years in the BiH criminal code for anyone who publicly denies, or tries to justify, the Srebrenica genocide. The leadership of Serbia and the Republika Srpska, in turn, recognize that the massacre of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica was a war crime committed by certain individuals, but deny the term "genocide" and the involvement of the entire Serb community in it.
Schmidt, who succeeded Inzko at the end of July, has not been recognized as High Representative for BiH by the Republika Srpska, nor by Russia, as his candidacy was not unilaterally approved by the UN Security Council, as the protocol demands.
