NATO Concerned About Divisive Rhetoric Of Bosnian Serb Politician Dodik -Secretary General

The provocative rhetoric of a Serb member of the Bosnia and Herzegovina presidency, Milorad Dodik, undermines NATO's achievements in the region, the Alliance's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd November, 2021) The provocative rhetoric of a Serb member of the Bosnia and Herzegovina presidency, Milorad Dodik, undermines NATO's achievements in the region, the Alliance's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday.

Dodik has been threatening to withdraw Bosnian Serbs from central institutions and create a breakaway Serb army, instead of sharing one with BiH. The move comes as part of what Republika Srpska describes as a reassessment of its relations with Sarajevo, following a controversial law on the criminalization of denial of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide.

"We are concerned about the situation in Bosnia Herzegovina with the inflammatory rhetoric by Mr.Dodik and his messages, undermining one of the main achievements we have made, to create a multiethnic armed force in Bosnia-Herzegovina," Stoltenberg said during the press conference.

Following the dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1992, Bosnia and Herzegovina proclaimed independence, and war erupted between Bosnian Muslims, Serbs and Croats. The war came to an end with the 1995 Dayton Agreement, which formed two autonomous entities within BiH - the Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina governed by a collective presidency made up of three members representing the country's Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian populations. The state is headed by one of the presidency's members on a rotational basis.