"After the term of the present Croatian ambassador to Sarajevo expires, the Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs should know that Bosnia-Herzegovina will closely analyse his successor's past to see if he has previously produced any negative effects on any of the three constituent peoples of Bosnia-Herzegovina," Republika Srpska President Dragan Cavic said at a press conference in Banja Luka.
"The future Croatian diplomat should serve in the capacity of charge d'affaires in Sarajevo for as much time as the Bosnian charge d'affaires has been serving in Zagreb," he added.
Branko Kesic, who served as chairman of the Managing Board of the Banja Luka Construction Institute, was proposed by the Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina in late 2004 to take up ambassadorial duties in Zagreb. At the time the rotating Bosnian Presidency was chaired by the Serb representative Borislav Paravac.
Media in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia warned at the time that Kesic's role during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war might become an obstacle to his diplomatic appointment in view of the fact that at the height of the ethnic cleansing campaign in Banja Luka he held a senior position in the city's Construction Institute. It is speculated that this fact makes him at least partly responsible for the destruction of numerous Catholic and Islamic religious sites in Banja Luka.
Over the last five months Bosnia-Herzegovina has been represented in Zagreb by a charge d'affaires, and it has been announced that Sarajevo will propose a new ambassador to Croatia this autumn.
Cavic also said that it was "well known" that during the war Zagreb had served as "a centre for the recruitment of Mujahideen for the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina."
"There were a number of government officials in Zagreb who were engaged in the acquisition of material resources for the Mujahideen network in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It may have been in the interests of some people in Zagreb to sweep many of the unpleasant things under the carpet to prevent them from coming to the surface," Cavic said.