Region should cooperate to stop people joining foreign wars

BELGRADE - State Secretary with the Interior Ministry of Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) Bakir Dautbasic said Friday that the departures of citizens of Western Balkan countries to join wars in foreign countries, notably Syria and Iraq can be prevented by regional cooperation.

"Regional cooperation will prove crucial to successfully resolving this issue and reducing the departures of our citizens. When it comes to BiH, we already have more than 20 citizens killed in these battlefields," Dautbasic said.

Speaking to reporters after the EU - Western Balkans Ministerial Forum on Justice and Home Affairs in Belgrade, Dautbasic said that with its new Criminal Code, BiH would give a free hand to state agencies and prosecutor's offices to prosecute those offenses in accordance with the criminal procedure.

Dautbasic said that two BiH citizens had recently been arrested in Vienna over their recruitment to fight for the so-called Islamic State, adding that BiH institutions cooperated with Austria in those matters.

"I welcome the operation by the Austrian authorities. We have had two operations in BiH as well - Damascus 1 and Damascus 2, where we arrested 27 persons, four of whom are still in detention," Dautbasic said, adding that BiH citizens were also joining the war in Ukraine.