Dodik said that Lagumdzija's move was "absolutely unacceptable," adding that the foreign minister had not agreed it with "all parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina."
"With this act you have again confirmed what I have been constantly warning about, that with such a unilateral policy representatives of the Bosniak people do not want to build a common Bosnia and Herzegovina," Dodik said in his letter to Lagumdzija.
The Serb Democratic Party (SDS) also protested, describing the commemoration as "war propaganda". SDS leader Mladen Bosic accused Lagumdzija that by organising the reception for the diplomatic corps he was trying to run only a pro-Bosniak policy.
Leading electronic and print media in Republika Srpska, the Serb entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, either ignored the ceremonies marking the start of the siege or described April 6, 1992 as the start of expulsions of Serbs from Sarajevo and the biggest ethnic cleansing campaign in Europe since the Second World War.