Congress of North American Bosniaks Demands Sutorina Sea Access Be Returned to BiH

The Congress of North American Bosniaks (KBSA), in cooperation with the Institute for Research of Genocide of Canada (IGK), and with the support of American and Canadian organizations and intellectuals, publicly warns all political entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and especially the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, that Sutorina is part of Bosnia and Herzegovina's state territory, and that no one has the right to sign documents in the name of the Bosnian state and its citizens that affect its territorial integrity, sovereignty, political independence, and international subjectivity, reports the BiH news agency Patria (NAP).

- Bosnia and Herzegovina entered the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes with two sea accesses: Neum near Klek and Sutorina near Herceg Novi – states the letter from KBSA and IGK.

- These accesses were confirmed prior to that at the Congress of Berlin in 1878. Evidence of Bosnia and Herzegovina's borders is located in Vienna and Dubrovnik and can be obtained through diplomatic channels. When the AVNOJ Yugoslavia was formed, Bosnia and Herzegovina had borders established by the Congress of Berlin.

The Constitution of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia of January 31, 1946, stipulated that only the National Assembly of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia could demarcate borders between the people's republics, and that the borders of the People's Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina could not be changed without its consent.

Accordingly, Sutorina was drawn on maps as Bosnia and Herzegovina's access to the open sea. The exchange of the Sutorina territory, with nearly 9,000 hectares and seven kilometers of coastline near the Bay of Kotor, for the hunting grounds on Sutjeska was carried out in 1948, after an informal verbal meeting between Đuro Pucar Stari from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Blažo Jovanović from Montenegro, about which there is no written record. Only then did the first maps appear that depicted Sutorina within Montenegro.

Expressing the opinion of North American Bosniaks and many American and Canadian intellectuals, KBSA and IGK consider it completely unreasonable to accept the signing of definitive borders with Montenegro until the International Court of Justice, based on Bosnia and Herzegovina's request, arbitrates the issue. The right to dispose of state territory, it is stated in their letter, belongs only to the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its citizens.

- We call on the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina as the highest body of authority, responsible for protecting the state's territorial integrity, to immediately suspend any negotiations aimed at renouncing access to the open sea.

KBSA and IGK will immediately inform the relevant American and Canadian authorities about this case and request their active participation in protecting the territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to which they are obliged as members of the Peace Implementation Council in Bosnia and Herzegovina – it is stated, among other things, in the open letter from North American Bosniaks addressed to the BiH Presidency, reports NAP.