WASHINGTON, Oct 18 (Hina) - A spokesman for the State Department, Philip Reeker, on Wednesday confirmed that U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo, its consulates in Banja Luka and Mostar, and the branch office of the US Agency for International
Development (USAID) in Tuzla, were closed for security reasons. The decision (on closing) was made because of reliable information about security threats to US offices and citizens in Bosnia-Herzegovina, he said but declined to comment on the case in detail. Besides Bosnia, U.S diplomatic offices in Azerbaijan, Yemen and in Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar, Pakistan, as well as the consulate general in Osaka, Japan, were temporarily closed. The US media speculate that the closing of the American embassy and consulates in Bosnia could be linked with previous assertions of some CIA officials who said that during the war in Bosnia in early 1990s several hundred members
WASHINGTON, Oct 18 (Hina) - A spokesman for the State Department,
Philip Reeker, on Wednesday confirmed that U.S. Embassy in
Sarajevo, its consulates in Banja Luka and Mostar, and the branch
office of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in
Tuzla, were closed for security reasons.
The decision (on closing) was made because of reliable information
about security threats to US offices and citizens in Bosnia-
Herzegovina, he said but declined to comment on the case in detail.
Besides Bosnia, U.S diplomatic offices in Azerbaijan, Yemen and in
Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar, Pakistan, as well as the
consulate general in Osaka, Japan, were temporarily closed.
The US media speculate that the closing of the American embassy and
consulates in Bosnia could be linked with previous assertions of
some CIA officials who said that during the war in Bosnia in early
1990s several hundred members of extremist Islamic groups had
arrived in Bosnia, and some of them remained as naturalised Bosnian
after the war was over in 1995.
(hina) ms