President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik stated that he will try to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to support the aspirations for holding a referendum on Srpska’s autonomy.
“This has been discussed before, but Putin has always supported the Dayton Agreement and the territorial integrity of BiH. That was also the case the last time we spoke, but much has changed since then. I will try to convince him to support our stance. I don’t know if I will succeed, but I will certainly raise the issue,” Dodik said.
The President of Srpska emphasized that a referendum is a legitimate way for the people to express their views on important issues.
“It is a civilizational achievement that also belongs to the Serb people,” Dodik said in an interview with the Russian service of the BBC.
Answering the question of what will happen if the federal government and Christian Schmidt do not accept the results of the referendum in Srpska, scheduled for October 25, Dodik said that would mean they do not care about the will of the people they are trying to rule over.
“For us, that will be the basis for creating new political agendas and processes in which we will fight to affirm the people’s position. We will probably, at some point in the future, ask the people whether they want to live in a BiH in which their will is not respected,” Dodik said.
The President of Republika Srpska stressed that BiH is a meaningless, impossible, and unfinished state.
“After countless international operations, coercion, schemes, and deceptions, BiH as it is does not deserve to exist, and therefore it is only logical that the Serb people demand their right to the status of an independent state,” Dodik stated.
When asked what he wants his legacy to be, Dodik replied that in economic terms it is a developed Srpska, in spiritual terms the preservation of the cultural and religious characteristics of the Serb people, and ultimately for Srpska to become an independent state.
Source: RTRS
