Sutorina

Montenegrin President Filip Vujanovic on Sunday said Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina will be the first ex-Yugoslav republics to sign a border demarcation agreement.

After meeting the President of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dragan Covic, in the town of Tivat, Vujanovic said the agreement would be signed  by the end of August in Vienna.

Further consultations with local and international legal experts are needed before Bosnia's state parliament can make any decisions about the Sutorina border dispute, the parliament's constitutional-legal commission ruled on Monday.

Experts, professors, intellectuals and politicians met in the Bosnian parliament on Tuesday to debate what the country should do over the issue of Sutorina - a coastal area in southern Montenegro that some Bosnians say should belong to Bosnia.
 

European Parliamentarians have submitted 188 amendments to a draft resolution on Montenegro, which will be discussed on Monday, most of which urge Podgorica to resolve border and property disputes with neighbouring countries.

Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina are no closer to settling a row over their borders in the Sutorina area.
 
As far as Montenegro is concerned, the Sutorina issue should be removed from discussion as soon as possible, the Foreign Minister, Igor Lukcic, told a parliamentary hearing on Friday.  "Our position is clear and I do not see that anything can change it," Luksic said.

Montenegrin leader Milo Djukanvic on Tuesday has condemned attempts by academics and some politicians in Bosnia to revive a dispute over the two countries' borders.

The row erupted after a number of Bosnian academics claimed that a short stretch of the Montenegrin coast belonged by right to Bosnia.

Montenegrin opposition parties on Wednesday called on the government to deal more toughly with a new border dispute that has erupted after some Bosnian academics claimed a short stretch of the Montenegrin coast belonged by rights to Bosnia.

Bosnia's parliament on Thursday will debate a resolution calling on the government to reject a proposed agreement with Montenegro aimed at determining the border.

The initiative, proposed by parliamentarian Denis Becirovic in November, says it is unacceptable for Bosnia to allow Montenegro to keep a part of the strategically important Bay of Kotor, close to the town of Herceg Novi.