Dodik: RS will not give up on annulling decisions of high representatives, Putin understands this

SARAJevo, (Patria) - Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Milorad Dodik stated today in Banja Luka that the BiH entity of Republika Srpska will continue with its activities related to the cancellation of "imposed solutions" and that it will create solutions that "are in accordance with the Constitution", and that more and more people in the world understand this.

"I think the level of understanding is much higher today compared to a month and a bit ago when we were accused of war escalation. This is a democratic process in which RS has the right to create processes and defend its competencies," Dodik stated.

 Commenting on the withdrawal of consent for the Armed Forces of BiH, the HJPC and the Indirect Taxation Authority of BiH, Dodik emphasized that they will continue to proceed as planned and that he expects the National Assembly of RS to make a decision on holding a special session next week.

He also spoke about the Election Law, and said that talks on electoral reform are being conducted bypassing representatives from RS.

"RS is ready to resolve certain issues related to this and I think we will support electing a Serb from RS and others, and that could resolve this electoral mess. Muslims, through Izetbegović, want to elect the one they want in the sense of Komšić, while the determination of Croats is not to agree to be outvoted and to have several more mandates stolen from them. When they agree on how to solve the problem of electing a member of the BiH Presidency, we will enter and vote on the agreed solution," Dodik commented.

Speaking about the Houses of Peoples, he said that it is a Dayton category and that they will support the solution that states that "constituent peoples can legitimately elect their representatives".

"As for electoral reform related to voting procedures, the counting of mandates should belong to the party, and I believe that absentee voting should be eliminated because it is the biggest element of political corruption. At this moment, I am receiving offers to buy 1,000, 2,000 votes from abroad, and that is an open secret, all political parties do that. Let the state pay for the trip from America and let them vote," he said.

 Regarding NATO, Dodik says that it will remain a strong formation, but that RS does not want NATO to have some rigid role here. Our experience with NATO is bad – they bombed us."

The British have stirred up many problems here and are maintaining this conflict. The mere fact that the British Parliament decided to discuss BiH indicates several things. First, that a small number of MPs were interested in these issues. You see that these are people who were previously engaged on the side of the Muslims. Even a number of them were directly in Paddy Ashdown's team. That British Parliament has absolutely shown its facelessness, that it is biased, that it should be understood as the opinion of individuals, and that is how we will treat it," Dodik said.

He also spoke about his visit to the Russian Federation and his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Dodik called productive.

"Putin and I talked alone for almost an hour about all issues. There were issues related to the economy, primarily investments for the construction of the gas pipeline and the price of electricity, but the President of Russia was also interested in the construction of the Serbian-Russian church and how to complete it and how Russian entities could get involved. We spent most of our time on political issues. Russia is a witness to the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement and intends to preserve the Dayton Peace Agreement, and it manifests this in every possible way. We discussed what has been done and that Dayton and the Constitution of BiH have been desecrated and that attempts are being made to shift the blame to RS, although it is known that the high representative had no right to impose any law, and he did so 140 times, and I explained that to him," Dodik said.

He added that he was "impressed by how well he was acquainted with the details" and emphasized that Putin told him that there would be no support for the appointment of a high representative in the UN Security Council.

"Domestic actors should resolve issues, not someone from the outside. Russia does not interfere in the internal affairs of BiH as others do. We are increasingly seeing special envoys. Our relationship will be one of direct communication," Dodik said.

Dodik also said that if he were to summarize just one thing from the meeting with Putin, it would be that the Russian Federation supports everything that is in accordance with international law.