In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dodik says he dreams of Republika Srpska's secession
In Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik said that he dreams of this autonomous entity seceding from the country and subsequently uniting with Serbia. He said this in an interview with the Jerusalem Post, responding to a question about a possible referendum on such a scenario.
Republika Srpska is an autonomous entity within the internationally recognized borders of Bosnia and Herzegovina, not a sovereign state. Dodik said that Bosnian Serbs would seize even a small opportunity to realize this aspiration and are preparing for such developments.
Ties with Israel
During the journalist's visit to Banja Luka, Israeli officials and representatives of Republika Srpska opened a representative office of the Israel Chamber of Commerce. According to the publication, the office is intended to promote trade, technological cooperation and investment.
The ceremony was attended by Israel's Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli, Israel's non-resident ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina Galit Peleg, the Serb member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Željka Cvijanović, local politicians and business representatives. According to Dodik, the idea of opening the representative office emerged after his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this year.
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Status of Republika Srpska
The Dayton Peace Agreement ended the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in late 1995, preserving the country within its internationally recognized borders and dividing it internally. Republika Srpska received slightly less than half of the country's territory, while most of the remainder became part of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Republika Srpska has its own president, government, parliament, police and public institutions.
The publication notes that there is currently no internationally recognized mechanism under which a referendum could lead to Republika Srpska's independence or its unification with Serbia. Western governments reject Dodik's comparisons with Kosovo, emphasizing the different legal and historical context.
International courts have found that Bosnian Serb forces carried out large-scale campaigns of persecution and ethnic cleansing of Bosniaks and Croats during the war in territories they claimed for a Serb state. Dodik, meanwhile, claimed that international institutions had paid insufficient attention to Serbian victims of the war.
