"We must be objective. Croats will never allow any serious debate to be held which would make no mention of this three-entity model. Accordingly, discussions on the three entities are inevitable, Muratovic said in an interview with the Bosnian weekly called 'Dani'.
He said that he came to this conclusion on the basis of experience he gained while he had been a Bosnian ambassador to Croatia when he had seen that the largest number of Croats as well as the Croatian diaspora would like to have its entity in Bosnia.
Open and democratic discussions should be held on the matter so as to hear all arguments which would make people to abandon eventually this project, Muratovic said in the interview published in Friday's issue of the weekly.
Muratovic has lately been exposed to severe criticism since a television political broadcast when the TV audience got an impression that this Bosnian Muslim politician, together with a Croat professor from Mostar University, Bozo Zepic, was advocating the model of Bosnia consisting of the three entities.
"Professor Zepic has written a whole chapter (on the issue) in his book. Let those who are acquainted with the matter polemicise with him and discard his arguments. I have clearly rejected the possibility of a third entity," Muratovic defended his position in the interview to Dani.
In another interview he gave to the 'Slobodna Bosna' weekly also on Friday, Muratovic, however, said he believed that Bosnia could be organised as an effective state with three entities under condition that the entities were not based on ethnic principle.
He told this paper that the model of entities based on ethnic principle and territorial reorganisation of Bosnia was "practically infeasible", adding that it would be better, however, for Bosnia to have three rather than two entities as the former model would eliminate the current Republic of Srpska (Bosnian Serb entity).
The leader of the minor Bosnian Croat party called Croat People's Community in BiH (HNZ BiH), Milenko Brkic, on Friday voiced the opposition to the proposal for three ethnic entities in Bosnia.
"The reorganisation of Bosnia-Herzegovina into three republics would be unfavourable for the Croat people, as Croats who live in areas predominantly populated by other two peoples (Serbs and Muslims) will be forced to leave those areas," Brkic told a news conference in Mostar.
His party has three deputies in the parliament of the Croat-Muslim Federation, and is a coalition partner of the Croat leading party, the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia-Herzegovina (HDZ BiH). The HNZ BiH advocates a model of Bosnia being organised into four multinational regions: Sarajevo, Mostar, Tuzla and Banja Luka.
This would help preserve the unity and territorial integrity of Bosnia-Herzegovina and "we are for the united Bosnia which would together with Croatia join the European Union" Brkic said.