“Diplomat Henry Kissinger is one of the pharaohs of world diplomacy, much like the renowned Andrei Gromyko from the Soviet era and some other truly rare diplomatic bards,” said Dragan Kalinić, former president of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska.
“He advised numerous U.S. presidents and played a significant role in ending the Vietnam War, establishing new relations with Russians and Chinese, as well as in the Middle East. His observations about the essence of the permanent crisis in Bosnia, dating back to the time of Dayton, articulated in an interview 13 years ago, were almost visionary. Even from today’s perspective, they gain in relevance and weight. It would be wrong to conclude from what he said about Bosnia being a ‘foolishly recognized state’ that he was pro-Serb biased or acted as a Serb lobbyist,” Kalinić told RTRS.
Kalinić emphasized that Kissinger proved to be a brutally realistic connoisseur of the centuries-old history in these dark regions, whose analysis and conclusions unfortunately did not reach the ears of those Western powerbrokers who, as he noted, brought this country to the brink of unsustainability and collapse.
“As far as I know, Serbs had an opportunity at one point to engage him constructively in an attempt to resolve the Bosnian knot, but I believe it was clumsily attempted and therefore failed. He departed this world at the age of a hundred with all the controversies that accompanied his diplomatic activity. Probably dissatisfied that his advice and messages were not always accepted and taken seriously,” Kalinić emphasized.
According to Kalinić, in the case of Bosnia, Kissinger’s reality was not refuted.
“For the most part, time will show whether this will also be the case with other countries affected by tragic conflicts and various crises, which were the subject of his analyses,” Kalinić said.
Henry Kissinger passed away at the age of 101 at his home in Connecticut. He was an American diplomat, Secretary of State, and National Security Advisor in the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
