On Thursday (October 28), after the Serbian leader Milorad Dodik threatened to withdraw part of the Serbs and form a dedicated Serb army in Bosnia, the EU’s highest military Officials expressed support for a unified Bosnian armed forces.
The formation of the country’s combined armed forces (OSBiH), including the Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian components that fought each other in the wars of the 1990s, is hailed as the greatest achievement since the conflict, with approximately 100,000 deaths.
The Dayton Peace Agreement of 1995 divided Bosnia into two highly autonomous regions based on ethnicity, namely the Republic of Serbia and a federation shared by Croats and Bosniacs, linked together through a weak central government that has been strengthened over the years, so that the country can function normally .
But Dodik, a separatist Serbian leader supported by Russia and dissatisfied with the decision of the international peace envoy and the Constitutional Court, made it clear that he wanted to withdraw from state institutions including the armed forces.
Claudio Graziano, President of the European Military Commission, stated that his visit was intended to show that the 27 member states attach great importance to the unification of Bosnia.
Graziano said at the press conference: “I brought the information of all 27 people that the armed forces are supported.”
Senad Masovic, the head of the OSBiH joint headquarters, stated that the armed forces are the only legal and legal military force in Bosnia according to the national defense law passed by the National Assembly.
“Any other organization will be considered a paramilitary organization,” Masovic said.
Christian Schmidt, Bosnia’s special envoy for international peace, said in a parliamentary speech on the ongoing political crisis caused by the Serb blockade of state institutions, “it is unacceptable to cancel the achievements of the past 26 years”.
Schmidt said that for Bosnia, any unilateral withdrawal of state institutions would be a “very serious setback.”
