Talha Ozturk
05 August 2023•Update: 05 August 2023
BELGRADE, Serbia
The United States is pursuing “anti-Serbian" policies, the leader of one of the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina said Friday.
Milorad Dodik, president of the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska (RS), made the remarks following a joint session of the RS and the Serbian Council for Cooperation in Banja Luka, the administrative center of the entity, together with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.
The US “decided to take drastic measures against the RS. These are decisions that…come from one of the largest countries in the world, which carries out anti-Serb policies,'' said Dodik.
According to Dodik, the decision by the US to add four Serbian officials to a sanctions list came at the request of the government in Sarajevo.
Vucic said they will always stand by Serbs in all regions, including the RS.
"Serbian officials included on the sanctions list by the United States will always be welcome in Serbia, and we will treat them as if there is no sanctions decision,'' he said.
On July 31, the US Treasury added four high-ranking Bosnian Serb officials to a sanctions list on the grounds that they undermined the Dayton Peace Agreement which ended the 1992-1995 Bosnian war.
They include Zeljka Cvijanovic, a Serb member of the tripartite collective Bosnian presidency, and the prime minister of the Serb entity in Bosnia, Radovan Viskovic.
The four allegedly took part in drafting a law that the US says undermines the unity of Bosnia by ignoring the decisions of the country’s Constitutional Court.
