Dodik angry over meeting between Murphy, Hill and Vučić

(Patria) - Media in the region report on their front pages that Milorad Dodik again insulted the US ambassador to BiH, calling him a "slimeball," but note that he softened his secessionist rhetoric, saying he is now looking for a way for Republika Srpska to be independent "within BiH." 

Dodik was greatly angered by the fact that US Ambassador Michael Murphy, together with his colleague from Belgrade Christopher Hill, met with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić on Wednesday. 

The Serbian president thus thwarted Dodik's efforts to exclude Murphy from contacts with Serbian politicians, whom he blames for interfering in the internal affairs of BiH. Murphy again sharply criticized Dodik's threats of secession of the RS, warning him that concrete steps in that direction will not remain without a response from the US. Dodik therefore banned all officials from the RS from meeting with the US ambassador. 

The information about the "productive meeting" with Vučić and Murphy in Belgrade, which is unusual in diplomatic practice, was published by Hill on Twitter. 

"We all agreed on the importance of supporting the sovereignty, territorial integrity, multi-ethnic character, and functional institutions at the state level of BiH," wrote the US ambassador to Serbia. 

Commenting on that meeting, Dodik on Thursday in Banja Luka, in front of journalists, defended Vučić, calling him a responsible statesman, but attacked Murphy, claiming that by going to Belgrade he is trying to break the blockade imposed on him by Republika Srpska. 

"This is not a dispute between the RS and Serbia. This is about a slimeball named US Ambassador Murphy," Dodik said. 

He also believes that it was precisely Murphy and the British ambassador to BiH, Julian Reilly, who, just to spite the RS, persuaded the leaders of Bosniak and civic parties to sign a joint statement on Wednesday calling for the preservation of the status of state property as the property of BiH, not the entities. He scheduled a meeting for Friday with representatives of political parties from the RS to discuss precisely this issue, which he had previously marked as a red line that could lead to the RS seceding from BiH, but now he has significantly softened that threat. 

"I will offer a document that will essentially move towards uniting all political parties in the RS around the necessary degree of autonomy for the RS within BiH," Dodik said, as reported by Slobodna Bosna.