Dodik: Biden cannot change anything, the referendum will be held

Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik stated that the referendum on the Day of the Republic of Srpska will be held regardless of the reactions of international officials and domestic politicians, reports the Patria news agency.

"The referendum will be held on September 25, and on that evening, you can only congratulate me, nothing else," Dodik emphasized during his guest appearance on TV1's Dnevnik.

If there is a reaction from the OHR, it will be interpreted as taking sides and using crude political force, and the referendum would still be held in that case, Dodik said.

Commenting on the fact that the SDA called on the Constitutional Court of BiH, the Prosecutor's Office, and SIPA to prevent the referendum from being held, Dodik said that the Prosecutor's Office of BiH and SIPA, as well as the Court of BiH, are illegitimate institutions.

"The bodies of BiH have neither substantive nor formal legitimacy. They were created by the violent decisions of the High Representative, instead of by an agreement and accord between the two entities in BiH," believes the President of the Republic of Srpska.

Commenting on reports that US Vice President Joe Biden will ask the Serbian Prime Minister to exert pressure to prevent the referendum from being held, Dodik said that Biden cannot change anything and that if he meant Bosnia and Herzegovina, he would have come to Sarajevo.

"Vučić is my friend, a man who presents his arguments, and it is up to me to decide. Biden cannot change anything there. Whether the US ambassador to BiH asked Biden to do this is possible. If Biden meant Bosnia and Herzegovina, he would have come to Sarajevo.

I can tell you that the referendum will be held on September 25, and in the evening, you can only congratulate me. Nothing more than that," said the President of the RS.