Kosovo “link” fuels harsh ethnic rhetoric in Bosnia
Serbia will decisively defend the UN resolution 1244 on Kosovo and the 1995 Dayton accord on Bosnia – two cornerstones of Balkan peace --, Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said on Thursday, leading to an unprecedented harsh reaction by a top official in Sarajevo.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Friday, October 26, 2007
Kostunica stressed that the preservation of Kosovo and the Republika Srpska were the "top-priority goals of our country and our national policy."
Serbia is a state guarantor of the 1995 Dayton Accords which ended the four-year civil war in Bosnia.
The Serbian Prime Minister added that the purpose of the measures of the High Representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina Miroslav Lajcak - which greatly reduce the authority of Banja Luka -- and of the plan by Martti Ahtisaari was the abolishing of the Republika Srpska and the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo.
"Lajcak's measures have as a goal the abolishing of Resolution 1244 and of the Dayton agreement, i.e. the unilateral declaration of Kosovo's independence and the abolishing of RS. This represents an open undermining of the fundamental interests of the Serb people," Kostunica said.
In his words, as a signatory of the Dayton agreement, Serbia will provide full support to the Prime minister of the Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik and to the institutions in Banja Luka in the preservation of Republika Srpska's position, as defined by the Dayton Peace Accords.
Reacting to Kostunica's statement, the Croat president of the Bosnian presidency Zeljko Komsic warned Serbia not to interfere in Bosnian affairs.
"Kostunica should better deal with questions such as the future of Serbia, and to keep his fingers away from Bosnia because he could get it on his fingers and on his nose", Komsic said.
Kostunica's office condemned Komsic's statements, calling them "primitive, arrogant, war-mongering and uncivilized".
