After discussion in England on calming relations in BiH, Lords come on official visit to Sarajevo

Members of the House of Lords of the Parliament of Great Britain arrive on an official visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina on Friday.

It has been confirmed for the Patria agency from the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH that the meeting of the Lords with members of the collegium of both houses of the BiH Parliament begins at 9:30 AM, but no further details were revealed.

English Lords consulted in mid-month with General Michael Rose, former UNPROFOR commander in Bosnia and Herzegovina, on how England can influence stability in BiH, who is the main cause of problems in the country, and what it would mean for the BiH entity of Republika Srpska to join Serbia, and whether conflicts in the country will escalate again.

Lord Jopling: ... can everything break again and find ourselves where we were?

Sir Michael Rose: I think there is always a chance for something like that. Winston Churchill said that the Balkans have so much history that it is impossible to separate history from the present, as what is happening today is based on what happened in the past. In the Balkans, it is not what you see on the surface that matters, but what is happening beneath the surface... I think the threat of BiH becoming a failed state is actually great, especially referring to Bosnian Serbs who do not accept the idea of a single entity in the state. Of course, the Dayton Agreement gave them the opportunity to show their muscles, and they have been doing so for the last 20 years, and they should not have been allowed to. Another threat is jihadists. You also have a collapsing economy...

General Rose said that Britain has a strategic interest in what will happen to the Western Balkans.

"I don't think anyone today would agree with the famous saying: No normal person gets involved in the Balkans. Also, we have 72 Britons, mostly soldiers, who died in the Western Balkans since the early 1990s, and we want to show that they did not sacrifice themselves in vain. My view is that, despite the fact that we are leaving the EU, we must support the Union's efforts in persuading these countries to join it, but not only the Union but also NATO. We must insist on the standards required for joining the EU and NATO, not only in technical but also in moral and judicial terms," said General Rose.