Dodik and Tegeltija's Game on BiH Sovereignty: The Declaration is a Packaged Deception!

By Delvin Kovač

Full respect for the territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina is not in question, Aleksandar Vučić almost always claims, invariably omitting respect for the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

And it is absolutely clear why the Serbian president avoids the word sovereignty, which Milorad Dodik is now introducing with great fanfare, and of course, it is a Trojan horse for the Trojka.

And we can conclude that this is the case after the performance of Milan Tegeltija, advisor to the president of the smaller BiH entity, Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, who publicly, before the cameras, admitted the real truth.

Namely, Tegeltija stated last night in a debate with Professor Suad Kurtćehajić on Federal Television that Bosnia and Herzegovina is not sovereign due to international interventionism - the actions of the Office of the High Representative (OHR) and the presence of foreign judges in the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"Sovereignty means supreme authority over a certain territory," Tegeltija explained, repeating his boss's phrase that Bosnia and Herzegovina is definitely an absolutely non-sovereign country today.

Therefore, Dodik's Declaration on BiH Sovereignty must be scrutinized and certainly not taken as an SNSD compromise offer.

Given that politicians in RS blindly follow the policy of Serbia and Aleksandar Vučić, we can see Belgrade's formula on this topic of 'sovereignty' as well. Only on the surface do Tegeltija and Dodik sound different, just like the staged disagreement between Vučić and the Serbian Minister of Defense, Miloš Vučević.

We will recall that in a recent interview with the Financial Times, Vučić stated that he has no intention of ordering the army to cross the border with Kosovo and that he will withdraw Serbian forces from that area.

- Serbia does not want war. Serbia would not benefit from it because it would jeopardize its position in the negotiations with Pristina under the auspices of the EU - said Vučić, who, it seems, retreated after numerous warnings from the West to withdraw his forces from the border with Kosovo. Among others, the American National Security Council and the European Union reacted in this regard.

However, Minister of Defense Miloš Vučević later said that - "if the Serbian Army received an order from the president, as the supreme commander, to enter the territory of Kosovo, 'as part of the Republic of Serbia', the Serbian Army will carry out such a task, effectively, professionally, and successfully".

Thus, Dodik offers a Declaration on Sovereignty, and Tegeltija says something different. The bad guys Vučić and Dodik turn into good guys, and their closest associates take on the role of the bad ones.

And in both cases, the one from Serbia and the one from Republika Srpska, we would end up in the same place. The green light for the Serbian Army to invade Kosovo would also mean a new war in the Balkans, just as it would apply to the game with the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to Dodik's idea, which is anything but sovereignty in the full sense of the word.