British Ambassador Ferguson: Serbia Obliged to Respect Bosnia and Herzegovina's Sovereignty and Independence, Dodik's Choice Is a Crisis!

(Patria) - British Ambassador to Belgrade Edward Ferguson stated that Serbia, as a signatory of the Dayton Agreement, has a legal obligation to respect both the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the political independence of that state and its institutions.

Addressing participants of the High Security and Defense Studies, organized by the Ministry of Defense of Serbia, Ferguson said that the institutional and political crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina is a consequence of the political choices of Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik, at least since 2010, reports NiN.

Ferguson, however, added that no single individual is responsible for the political, economic, and social problems Bosnia and Herzegovina faces today, but rather that Bosniak, Croat, and Serb political leaders, along with the international community, share responsibility.

"The current situation is nevertheless very specific. After the announcement of the first-instance verdict of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, President Dodik wants the world to believe that Republika Srpska is threatened. It is not. That there is an ethnically conditioned crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina. There is not. What exists is an institutional and political crisis as a consequence of the political choices of President Dodik, at least since 2010 when he first announced that his goal was the dissolution of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the path to independence for Republika Srpska," Ferguson said.

Ferguson, British Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2014 to 2018, also said that he is "particularly concerned" about the situation in that country, where "the key to security and stability remains encapsulated in the basic formulation of the Dayton Peace Agreement."

"And that is that Bosnia and Herzegovina is a unified, sovereign, and politically independent state, consisting of two entities: Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, existing under the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina and without the right to secession," he stated.