Dayton agreement has ensured that checks and balances enable a functional Bosnia and Hercegovina by making three sides interdepend onto one another. But this agreement was thought and approved under presumption that sides involved had had enough of the war and will want to live together. The brains behind the Dayton Agreement and the signing parties are long gone both from power in the US and from this life in the Balkans. New generation of politicians, genocide deniers and equipped with authoritarian blessing in Serbia, are up for scrapping this agreement while Bosnia pays the expenses.
The Serbian member of the Presidency of Bosnia, Milorad Dodik is leading these efforts to secede from Bosnia. He is seeking for unusual alliances in Erdogan in Turkey resulted empty handed. After meeting with Turkish President Erdogan, the latter stated, among other things, that “Turkey will certainly not allow Bosnia and Herzegovina to experience again the 1990s suffering.” Erdogan was also adamant that there would be no more war in BiH. Erdogan’s support for BiH may also have religious reasons, as the Bosnian Muslim population is the majority of tree ethnicities that make up Bosnia and Herzegovina and Turkey had old alliances with the Bosniak leaders of BiH, Izetbegovic and others but kept a good relation always also with Republica Srpska leaders too.
Dodik’s next destination is the old ally player in the region. Russia has had hands in the former Yugoslav conflict all along. Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina was further threatened when during Putin-Dodik meeting, the latter demanded for a Russian contingent soldiers in BaH ostensibly to maintain peace and provide more security for Serbs. A contingent of Russian soldiers were stationed in BaH in 1995, after the end of the war, after that in 1999, a few hours before NATO entered Kosovo, out of any expectation Russians have sent in Kosovo the same military contingent of about 200 soldiers and armored vehicles, who were stationed at Pristina Airport. Former Russian Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov had admitted that the entry of Russian soldiers in Kosovo was a big mistake ordering them to withdraw as soon as possible, even though Russian soldiers left Kosovo only 4 years after.
While Dodik is working hard to undermine stability instruments by using hate speech and nationalism, threats to withdraw Republika Srpska from federal institutions and Serbs from the armed forces, judiciary and police force. It was genocide denial and glorification of war criminals from Dodik which have fueled all this complicated situation which can lead to an armed conflict. He continues to step up the campaign for secession of RS from BaH despite the US threat of sanctions. Dodik also demanded in a recent meeting with Putin that the security of Bosnian Serbs to be shifted to Russia`s hands. On the other hand, currently in BaH we have a peacekeeping mandate from the UN Security Council, consisting of 600 EUFOR troops, which in case of conflict risk may consider to increase the number and expand the competencies of this mission through the command and strategy of so-called ‘Berlin Plus’. Recall that Dodik publicly denies the peacekeeping mission together with the UN High Representative Office. It is also clear that Russia has a number of objections to the Dayton Agreement, which occasionally places them as issues on the UN Security Council agenda.
The truth is that for BaH there is an agreement called the “Dayton Accords” which has stopped the war and the current crisis must be resolved by referring to this agreement. The option to reconsider this agreement would be a serious mistake because it would justify genocide, ethnic cleansing, nationalism and the 1990s Serbian politics. The partition of BaH should not be allowed by the international community because it would bring the Balkans to other unknown challenges. The EU should not aloud such plan to come to life, especially because the constitution of Bosnia and Hercegovina is built upon the values of Dayton accords, which are guaranteed by the US and the EU itself. The EU should put to hold the Russian invasion of Balkans coming through political and military means. Politically has started already a “revolution” in Montenegro and managed to transform Montenegro from pro-western to a suspicious government that is considered pro-Russia and pro-Serbia. Russia has a very strong military base in Serbia and that is how it wants to control or confront the West in the Balkans. This is very much related to the Russian intervention to the Ukraine, which was by definition a breach of agreements signed in the 90’es, when Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons, guaranteed by Germany, namely the EU and United States. The Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for its territorial sovranity and integrity to be guaranteed by major powers. Major powers did not react so much when Russia intervened in eastern Ukraine and took over Crimea.
That’s why this time the EU and US should ‘show their teeth’ when it comes to Bosnia and Hercegovina, precisely because Serbian appetites for so called ‘serbian world’ would not stop with BaH. This will continue with Kosovo and potentially with North Macedonia as well, despite the progress of the North Macedonia that has made in recent years toward the EU. This brings the question of ‘serbian world’ into the World politics of the EU and the United States. The ‘serbian world’ is nothing more or less than a greater Serbia and a nationalistic idea that will endanger the stability in the Balkans, once again for the second time within 25 years. This is a project started by the predecessors of Milosevic and implemented by Milosevic, which in his case, it resulted twice with international interventions, in Bosnia and Kosovo, but it is coming to life again by Vulin and Vucic, only to feed their nationalistic narrative and for the purpose of gaining electoral power within Serbia.
Bosnia and Hercegovina was a symbol of United States and EU collaboration to stop the genocide and build a civic state. Dayton accords in essence build a civic state with shared powers and shared presidency responsibilities. If Republika Srpska succeeds from BaH, then the ‘pandoras box’ will open in the Balkans for new wars, and the new wars will not be between BaH and Serbia but will spread between Croatia-BaH-Serbia and Kosovo, inevitably. But these are only wars in the terrain, the major clashes will come into life between EU and its inability to act between United States, its unwilling to act and Russias proactive politics to provoke international order.
Russia’s long hand will not stop in the Balkans. Once the region is in crisis, it will continue with elsewhere. This is a scenario that has been seen in Syria, between Russia – Ukraine and Georgia as well, but the Balkans is key to Russian influence in the world. Balkans is part of Europe but not part of EU and this is in the European front yard. To conclude, Dodik’s crazy plan, is not his plan only. The secessionist attempts of Republika Srpska are inspired and blessed by Aleksander Vucic and his associates but also supported by Russia, as a mean to show the stick to the European carrot in the Western Balkans. The European carrot so far has been failing to provide a brighter future for the entire Balkans, which includes Bosnia&Hercegovina and Kosovo. Utilizing this gap, the Russian is showing that it can destabilize the entire Balkans.
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