Bećirović: I will return NATO accession to BiH's Foreign Policy Strategy

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - Denis Bećirović, candidate for the BiH Presidency member, has deemed the relativization of Bosnia and Herzegovina's strategic goal of joining the NATO alliance from the key BiH Presidency document, the BiH Foreign Policy Strategy, as unacceptable.

- By adopting the BiH Foreign Policy Strategy 2018-2023, Izetbegović, Čović, and Ivanić have, for the first time, omitted the clear formulation that Bosnia and Herzegovina's strategic priority is NATO membership. With such a move, they have dealt a heavy blow to Bosnia and Herzegovina's Euro-Atlantic integration.

In this way, the previously established foreign policy, expressed in the General Directions and Priorities for the Implementation of BiH Foreign Policy back in 2003, in which our country's NATO membership was among the most important strategic priorities, has been revised. With this action, the three members of the BiH Presidency have harmed our country and set it back 'kilometers' on the Euro-Atlantic path, a path that is the fundamental strategic, security, and development goal of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The declarative European Čović has clearly aligned his views with his blacklisted friend, Milorad Dodik. Ivanić has clearly further exploited Izetbegović's proverbial inconsistency to prove himself to his Russian friends as someone who is distancing our country from NATO.

With this act, the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina is currently condemned to a lack of prospects and uncertainty regarding Euro-Atlantic integration, as well as regarding the achievement of long-term security and the protection of our homeland under the banner of the NATO alliance, the most powerful military alliance of the democratic world.

This act is just the 'icing on the cake' of the established practice of a non-state-like approach by the current members of the BiH Presidency, who have trampled on an absolute state priority in foreign policy, Bosnia and Herzegovina's membership in NATO, as a precursor to membership in the European Union. Our NATO membership is the antechamber to the European Union, a condition that all new EU members have met, and which we will also have to fulfill.

Therefore, it is all the more important for the public to know about the harmful concession made by the current trio in the BiH Presidency. When I am elected as a member of the BiH Presidency, I will do everything to correct this wrong move and to 'return' NATO to the Foreign Policy Strategy as our strategic goal, in the way it is specified for the EU as well - concluded Bećirović.