Sefik Dzaferovic calls on EU, NATO to open their doors to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Western Balkans
Bosnia and Herzegovina will be a safer place if the country becomes a member of both the EU and NATO, said the Bosniak member of the Presidential Council.
"Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a member of the EU and NATO, would be safer and more protected. The crisis we are in is the right time for this," Sefik Dzaferovic, told Anadolu Agency on the sidelines of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum which concluded last Sunday.
The three-day high-level diplomacy forum in the resort city of Antalya, Turkey brought together participants from 75 countries, including 17 heads of state, 80 government ministers, and 39 representatives of international organizations. Anadolu Agency was the forum's global communications partner.
Dzaferovic called on the EU and NATO to open their doors to Bosnia and Herzegovina and other Western Balkan countries, saying it will prevent risks, dangers, and situations similar to the Ukraine crisis.
He said the membership processes should be accelerated.
To a question, Dzaferovic said considering Moscow’s influence in the region, the war between Russia and Ukraine may have repercussions in the Western Balkans.
"However, Russia's attack on Ukraine prompted strong reactions from the whole world … These reactions also managed to rally around the same view those who could not come together on Russia's influence,” he said.
“For the Balkans, these events convey the message to our Euro-Atlantic partners what could happen if they remain silent in the face of the presence of Russian influence,” he added.
If the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council takes the necessary steps "correctly", Dzaferovic said the crisis in Ukraine will not have an impact on the Western Balkans and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
- Political crisis in Bosnia-Herzegovina
Speaking about the ongoing political crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dzaferovic said the crisis is linked to the boycott of the functionality of Bosnia and Herzegovina institutions, attempts to change the state laws in the National Assembly of the Republika Srpska and security issues.
Dzaferovic recalled that they were very nervous about the threats against the territorial integrity and sovereignty of his country in the first half of January, and said that they demanded an increase in the number of European Union Peacekeepers (EUFOR) in the country.
With the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, EUFOR increased the number of its armed forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, he said, adding: "I am happy with this situation. Increasing NATO and EU peacekeeping forces in the country is one of the terms of the Dayton Peace Agreement."
In 1995, the Dayton Peace Agreement ending the war in Bosnia created a new federal government system with two entities: the Republika Srpska and the Croat and Bosniak-populated Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Last July, the country entered its worst political turmoil since the end of the war, when Serb officials started to boycott federal institutions because of a new law banning the denial of genocide and criminalizing the glorification of war criminals.
The crisis further escalated in October, when Milorad Dodik, the leader of the Serb-run entity Republika Srpska, announced it was quitting the main federal institutions to achieve sovereignty.
On Feb. 10, Bosnian Serb lawmakers voted in favor of a law establishing a separate High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council in the Republika Srpska.
