Tadic hailed the consensus between all relevant factors in Republika Srpska regarding the cooperation with the Hague tribunal, as opposed to political parties in Serbia who equated cooperation with The Hague with national treason. Tadic said such an attitude was political manipulation which was detrimental to both Serbia and the Republic of Srpska.
"Serbia must cooperate with the war crimes tribunal because it is in our national interests, otherwise it will not be helping Republika Srpska," Tadic said and added that noncooperation with the ICTY was national treason.
The president of the Republic of Srpska, Cavic, said that war crimes trials were not subject to the statute of limitations.
"This will last for who knows how long and we must learn to live with that," Covic said.
The two presidents fully agreed on all economic and political issues. Cooperation between Serbia and the Bosnian Serb entity will be in the interests of their citizens and will not be to the detriment of cooperation between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia and Montenegro, but it will expand it, Cavic and Tadic said.
Tadic highlighted the stabilisation of the situation in Republika Srpska and hailed the work of the commission for investigating war crimes in Srebrenica in 1995 and the public apology which Cavic had sent to the families of Srebrenica victims.
"We all owe apologies to one another. I am doing it because I am convinced that this is the way to stabilise relations. I am convinced that by apologising I am doing good for the Serb people and all other peoples," Serbian president Tadic said.
The Serbian president arrived in Bosnia for an official visit on Monday. He is scheduled to meet officials in the southern Bosnian town of Mostar on Wednesday.