Republika Srpska parliament

BELGRADE - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Wednesday he had had an excellent discussion with Republika Srpska Parliament Speaker Nenad Stevandic.

"Cooperation between Serbia and Srpska at all levels is a priority for the survival and progress of the Serbian nation," Vucic wrote in an Instagram post.

Bosnia's top court has annulled a law adopted last year by the assembly of Bosnia's Serb-majority entity Republika Srpska, saying it could undermine the authority of the state Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices by creating separate bodies under its own authority.

Bosnian Serb political leader Milorad Dodik told media after the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina ruled on Monday against the declaration by the Republika Srpska parliament that the entity "is going its own way and that it will continue to do what it thinks is best for it".

Dodik condemned the ruling as "completely outside the law and the constitution".

The Republika Srpska parliament, a Bosnian Serb-dominated part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is preparing to discuss a declaration that has exacerbated tensions in the country and heightened fears of disintegration and has brought back memories of ethnic violence a quarter of a century ago.

Dodik blaming foreign powers for the tensions in Bosnia, accused them of wanting to create "a Muslim state" and warned that any move by the European Union to exclude the Republika Srpska from its initiatives in the country would only "cement the independence" of the entity.

Bosnian Serb political representatives begin a boycott of state institutions on Tuesday, which will effectively prevent them from functioning, in a protest against the imposition of a ban on genocide and war crimes denial.

Lawmakers in the Republika Srpska National Assembly voted on Tuesday evening to reject a demand from High Representative Valentin Inzko, the international overseer of Bosnia's peace agreement, for people convicted of war crimes to be stripped of decorations awarded to them by the National Assembly in 2016.

Biljana Plavsic is being treated for COVID-19 at Dragisa Misovic Hospital in Belgrade and her condition is serious, a family member told SRNA, the official news agency in Bosnia's Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity on Thursday.

High Representative Valentin Inzko, the international overseer of Bosnia and Herzegovina's peace agreement, has sent a letter demanded that Republika Srpska National Assembly, the parliament in the Serb-dominated entity, annuls honours that it awarded last October to people convicted of war crimes within "a deadline of three months, by the end of April 2021".

The Republika Srpska entity parliament adopted a statement on Monday saying that it rejects the Resolution on Respect for the Victims of the Fascist Regime and Movement that was adopted by Bosnia and Herzegovina's state-level parliament last month because it allegedly rewrites history and marginalises Serb suffering in World War II.