BiH Ambassador to Serbia Aleksandar Vranješ said that recent remarks by BiH Defense Minister Zukan Helez, who called on the international community to withdraw its signature from the Dayton Peace Agreement and said that “Bosniaks would know what to do afterward,” should not be dismissed as election rhetoric, but amount to an open call for war.
Vranješ added that what he finds most striking is Europe’s silence in response to such statements.
“Let us also remember the words of Alija Izetbegović, who said he would sacrifice peace, and peace was indeed sacrificed. More than 30 years later, we are hearing a marginal SDP politician say he is prepared to start a war again. And do you know what impresses me most about this? That the same Europe remains silent about it,” Vranješ told RTS.
He argued that the role of Serbia and Republika Srpska in preserving peace can be demonstrated through concrete facts.
Vranješ noted that Belgrade is a signatory to the Dayton Peace Agreement, while Republika Srpska has, for the past 30 years, consistently referred to what he described as the original Dayton framework. He recalled that Annex IV of the agreement remains the Constitution of BiH and argued that its fundamental structure has never been changed.
“Imagine a situation in which Republika Srpska is defending the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina internationally at every opportunity, while political Sarajevo claims that Banja Luka is preparing secession. Imagine that paradox, while at the same time they are undermining that constitution because it does not suit them and conflicts with their vision of some kind of unitary Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Vranješ said.
Asked whether Foreign Minister Elmedin Konaković was undermining the constitutional order by announcing the withdrawal of diplomatic personnel from Belgrade, Vranješ said there was no practical confirmation that such announcements could be implemented.
He noted that BiH foreign policy is conducted by the Presidency, which has the authority to recall ambassadors, while diplomats are civil servants whose work is legally protected from political interference.
“At the end of the week, he finally sent some papers, some kind of instruction, in which he was no longer recalling anyone from the BiH Embassy, but instead calling the minister-counselor, technical secretary and driver for consultations. Elmedin Konaković will go down in the history of world diplomacy as the only foreign minister to summon a driver for political consultations,” Vranješ said.
Explaining BiH’s constitutional structure, Vranješ argued that the foreign minister is not the superior of ambassadors, but serves as an implementing body of the Presidency, which appoints and recalls ambassadors.
According to Vranješ, the minister’s role is to implement previously agreed foreign policy positions in bilateral and multilateral relations rather than create those positions independently. He claimed that Bosniak ministers have repeatedly disregarded this principle and used the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to present Bosniak political positions as the official policy of BiH.
“The moment the Presidency does not have consensus on an issue, no one can speak of an official position of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whether at the level of an ambassador or the foreign minister,” Vranješ emphasized.
He linked such conduct to the election campaign ahead of the October 4 elections. Citing opinion polls, Vranješ said he expects the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) to return as a major force on the political scene in the Federation of BiH, while the SDP and People and Justice (NiP), led by Konaković, could move into opposition. He also noted that the Sarajevo media have for months discussed the possibility of criminal complaints.
“He is trying at all costs to repair his damaged ratings by escalating relations with Serbia, thinking he will achieve something that way. I am convinced that he will not,” Vranješ said.
Commenting on an initiative by a group of lawmakers from political Sarajevo who sent hundreds of letters calling for the termination of the special relations between Serbia and Republika Srpska, Vranješ described the initiative as fundamentally misguided.
He stressed that special parallel relations are explicitly provided for under the Dayton Peace Agreement and argued that the relationship between Serbia and Republika Srpska cannot be undermined by such initiatives. As examples of their close ties, he pointed to a joint military exercise at Pešter and the joint commemoration of the Day of Serb Unity, Freedom and the National Flag in Banja Luka.
“What does some member of parliament from, say, Lithuania, who received that letter from parliamentarians in Sarajevo, have to do with the Dayton Peace Agreement? This is a form of political desperation in which they are prepared to embarrass themselves internationally for the sake of a few minor political points,” Vranješ said.
Source: RTRS
