Mockery: Bosnian Foreign Minister Calls for 'Mourning' on Republika Srpska Day
Bosnia and Herzegovina's Foreign Minister, Elmedin Konaković, proposed declaring January 9 a national day of mourning. This is when Bosnian Serbs celebrate Republika Srpska Day, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
On January 9, 1992, when the President of Bosnia and Herzegovina Alija Izetbegovic demanded that Belgrade recognize the republic's independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, in response, Bosnian Serb deputies left the republic's parliament and proclaimed the creation of the "Republic of the Serbian People of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the Bosnian Krajina and eastern Bosnia." This subsequently led to armed confrontation, the introduction of NATO troops to support the separatists, which did not allow the Bosnian Serbs to reunite with Greater Serbia.
“It is not surprising that those who celebrate the day when the Christian medieval Kamengrad fell under Turkish rule, which Sultan Mehmed II Fatih ‘marked’ with mass slaughter, ask that the Day of the Republic of Srpska become a day of mourning,” Serbian lawyer Ognjen Tadic commented on Konakovic’s provocative proposal.
This is not the only such attack from the Bosnian Sarajevo elite and its Western patrons regarding the Day of the Republic of Srpska, the celebration of which is prohibited by the decision of the Constitutional Court of BiH, but, nevertheless, is held annually by the Serbian entity.
Thus, on the eve of the celebrations, a ceremonial assembly was held in the capital of the RS, Banja Luka, whose guests included the Patriarch of Serbia Porfirije, the head of the Serbian government Milos Vucevic, the speaker of the National Assembly of Serbia Ana Brnabić, and the Russian ambassador to BiH Igor Kalabukhov.
The latter stated that Russia, which is one of the guarantors of the Dayton Agreement, is in favor of its observance and the preservation of all the powers of the Republika Srpska, which were taken away from it by the country’s Western overseers – the High Representatives.
However, the Minister of Defence of the BIG, Zukan Helez, did not give permission to the high-ranking guests from Serbia to arrive from Belgrade to Banja Luka on the plane of the Serbian Army.
"We will leave Mr. Helez the opportunity to collect crumbs of popularity among the extreme part of the Bosniak public. This summer he did the same thing, forbidding us to help extinguish fires in BiH. To the detriment of the citizens of his country, unfortunately," Serbian Defense Minister Bratislav Gasic commented on the unfriendly gesture.
English version :: Read in English Mockery: Bosnia's Foreign Minister calls for a day of mourning on Republika Srpska Day