Radmanovic: Serbia, BiH will cooperate better and more

BELGRADE - Nebojsa Radmanovic, Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) Presidency member and senior official of the ruling Party of Independent Social Democrats in Republika Srpska (RS), said that the relations between BiH and Serbia are very important and thus need to be improved on a broad basis.

"We will try to cooperate even more and better in the future,” Radmanovic said in an interview to Tanjug and the RS-based media (the Serb entity in BiH).

He said that in Thursday's talks with Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic in Belgrade, marking of the WWI centenary was underlined as very important for both countries.

In addition to this, they also discussed BiH's and Serbia's paths to the EU which implies certain common issues to be addressed jointly in the future.

The topic that could not be avoided was the current situation in Ukraine, on which the two countries have a similar, though slightly different opinion.

To the question referring to the likelihood of a referendum on independence in Republika Srpska, as well as the official position of Belgrade on this matter, Radmanovic pointed out that Serbia is a signatory to the Dayton Peace Agreement and a guarantor of its implementation.

Radmanovic emphasized that RS supports strict implementation of the Dayton Agreement, noting that it is a situation where no referendum is needed.
"We only raise the issue of self-determination when they are trying to take away the autonomy that we have now in BiH," he explained.

Referring to Croatia's proposal for resolving the entity issue in BiH, Radmanovic underlined that Croatia now sticks even more strongly to the position that the rights of Croats in BiH must be respected, which implies certain organizational...