Another Bosnian war on the brink?

Sarajevo is a typical Ottoman town where you instantly come across mosques, bazaars and fountains remaining from the Ottoman era, while there are many Turkish-speaking people to be found walking through its streets. Yet there is a major factor which differentiates the city from other Ottoman towns: Its gloom.

The buildings riddled by bullets and shrapnel during the Bosnian war have been left as they are. Even the mountains adorned with trees which surround the city cannot leave the gloom in the shade.

Yet the remnants of the war are not just physical. Even though 20 years have passed since the end of the war in 1995, the factors triggering the war still prevail. 

First of all, the ethnic structure of the country, composed of Muslim Bosniaks, Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats, is far too complex. The last official census was conducted in 1991, just before the start of the war. 

However, according to a census conducted last year and whose results were leaked to the press, today Bosniaks constitute a bit more than 50 percent of the population, whereas Serbs are about 35 percent and Croats only about 15 percent.

This obscurity is due to the concern that the declaration of the results might destroy the already existing fragility in the country. Some Bosnians also argue that not only the Serbs, but also the West, doesn?t want to reveal the results since Muslims clearly compose the majority today.

What makes this complexity even more complicated is the political structure. Administratively, Bosnia and Herzegovina is split into two autonomous entities: One of them is the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina which comprises 51 percent of Bosnia?s territory and is inhabited by Bosniaks and Croats. The other one is...