$ RTS SARAJEVO, 16 Aug (Hina) - The Bosnian Serbs have refused the solutions to the controversial regulations of laws on citizenship and passports of Bosnia and Herzegovina drafted by the Office of the High Representative in Sarajevo.
The Serb side refuses the offered proposal and finds it completely unacceptable, said a co-chairman of the Bosnian Council of Ministers, Boro Bosic, following a session of the Council held in Sarajevo on Saturday.
PASSPO
$ RTS
SARAJEVO, 16 Aug (Hina) - The Bosnian Serbs have refused the
solutions to the controversial regulations of laws on citizenship
and passports of Bosnia and Herzegovina drafted by the Office of
the High Representative in Sarajevo.
The Serb side refuses the offered proposal and finds it
completely unacceptable, said a co-chairman of the Bosnian
Council of Ministers, Boro Bosic, following a session of the
Council held in Sarajevo on Saturday. #L#
There are still considerable principal differences and it
has been concluded that the whole problem should be sent to the
Bosnian Presidency, Bosic said, explaining that the question of
dual citizenship and the citizenship of those persons who arrived
from other areas to Bosnia-Herzegovina during the war remain
disputable.
Another co-chairman of the Council, Haris Silajdzic, said
that the proposal of Westendorp's office was 'a maximum
compromise' and that the stands of the Serb side were
'unacceptable and irresponsible'.
The authorities in Pale want to legalise the process of
ethnic cleansing by granting the exiled Serbs from Croatia and
some Serbs from Yugoslavia the citizenship of Republika Srpska,
depriving at the same time the exiled persons from eastern Bosnia
of the same citizenship, Silajdzic said.
The international community should show determination and
take punitive actions against the Serb side for obstructing the
peace process and the implementation of the Sintra decisions, he
said.
The Bosnian Serbs' insisting on the issue of dual
citizenship is unnecessary as it is obvious that Yugoslavia is
showing no interest in granting them Yugoslav citizenship, co-
chairman Neven Tomic said.
The final proposal of the law on citizenship is a
compromise nobody is satisfied with, but the Bosniac and Croat
sides have expressed readiness to accept even such a version. The
Serb side is trying to find a compromise within this compromise,
which could lead to new shifts in the law, Tomic said.
The Office of the High Representative requested that the
new Bosnian-Herzegovinian passport be dark blue with the sign
'Bosnia and Herzegovina' and the state coat-of-arms, (after it is
adopted by the Presidency) with its first page bearing the name
of the entity in small letters.
The Serbs refuse any symbol of Bosnia-Herzegovina and
request that the passport only bear the name of the entity, which
is contrary to the Constitution, Tomic said.
It is expected that the problem will be discussed again
next week, when special U.S. representative Robert Gelbard is to
visit Bosnia-Herzegovina.
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