MOSTAR/BANJA LUKA, May 17 (Hina) - The leaders and all major political parties in Republika Srpska (RS) on Thursday unanimously objected to and condemned a statement by Croatian Prime Minister Ivica Racan on the need of abolishing
Bosnia's Serb entity. Racan told Croatian weekly Globus the Bosnian Serb entity of RS should be abolished as a prerequisite for the stability of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the equality of its nations and citizens. Racan's statement represents "a direct interference in a state's internal affairs," said the chairman of Bosnia's three-men state presidency, Zivko Radisic, a Serb, according to a Croatian Radio Herceg-Bosna correspondent from the RS capital of Banja Luka. "I am suprised and appalled that it comes from a Croatian official. Croatia is one of the guarantors of the Dayton (peace) agreement," Radisic said. According to RS Prime Minister Mladen Ivanic, the initiative for the
MOSTAR/BANJA LUKA, May 17 (Hina) - The leaders and all major
political parties in Republika Srpska (RS) on Thursday unanimously
objected to and condemned a statement by Croatian Prime Minister
Ivica Racan on the need of abolishing Bosnia's Serb entity.
Racan told Croatian weekly Globus the Bosnian Serb entity of RS
should be abolished as a prerequisite for the stability of Bosnia-
Herzegovina and the equality of its nations and citizens.
Racan's statement represents "a direct interference in a state's
internal affairs," said the chairman of Bosnia's three-men state
presidency, Zivko Radisic, a Serb, according to a Croatian Radio
Herceg-Bosna correspondent from the RS capital of Banja Luka.
"I am suprised and appalled that it comes from a Croatian official.
Croatia is one of the guarantors of the Dayton (peace) agreement,"
Radisic said.
According to RS Prime Minister Mladen Ivanic, the initiative for
the abolition of RS is "a concept which completely undermines the
Dayton agreement." He urged international institutions to state
their position.
Ivanic said if there was something in common linking Bosnia's
Croatian Democratic Union and the New Croatian Initiative parties
and the official Zagreb it was the request for RS to be dissolved.
....
Besides Racan's, RS President Mirko Sarovic condemned the
statements of Zdravko Tomac, chairman of the Croatian parliament's
foreign affairs committee, describing them as "ill-intentioned,
tendentious, and anti-Dayton."
He called on Zagreb authorities to tackle the rights of Croatian
Serbs and the discrimination he said they were subjected to.
RS Vice President Dragan Cavic said the Racan statement had been
motivated by the daily policy. He added the prospects of Racan's
Social Democratic Party at Croatia's impending local elections
were not good.
The Serb Democratic Party believes the aim is to foment tension in
RS and resume with an anti-Serb policy in Croatia "which goes back
to when Serbs were denied the status of constituent people and
expelled from Croatia."
(hina) ha