STATEMENT OF RUSSIAN EMBASSY IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA ON RECENTLY HELD SESSION OF ADMINISTRATIVE BOARD OF PEACE AGREEMENT IMPLEMENTATION COUNCIL

SARAJEVO, DECEMBER 7 (ONASA) – In connection with the recently held session of the Steering Committee of the Council for the Implementation of the Peace Agreement, we declare again that Christian Schmidt is not the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Attempts by individual members of the PIC Executive Board to claim the opposite do not mean the legitimization of Schmidt, but the delegitimization of the Management Board. Therefore, the conclusions reached cannot be considered the position of the international community, even more so because the content of the document stands out for its bias and imbalance, let alone the textual violation of Annex 4 of the Peace Agreement – Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The mantras about supporting the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of BiH look hypocritical, when the approach shown by individual members of the Board of Directors consciously undermines both unity and sovereignty (with the intrusive Office of the High Representative?), and the country’s territorial integrity.
The value of the Peace Agreement can be concluded in the fact that it is an open system, which enables the statehood of BiH to be built in accordance with the aspirations of its citizens. But, as the practice of its realization shows, only those decisions can be sustainable and vital, which were achieved by the political entities of BiH themselves, and by no means those that were written in the OHR or in the American embassy and adopted, as they say , “with a gun pointed at the head” of the High Representative, through blackmail and illegal sanctions, thus obtaining a scholastic formal-legal framework.
We invite the parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina to reject external mentoring, to show wisdom, patience, a compromise approach, showing the turbulent world an example of mature and responsible problem solving in order to create a truly independent and sovereign Bosnia and Herzegovina and to achieve the well-being and peace of all its citizens.