ZAGREB, June 6, 2019 – The Bosniak member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Šefik Džaferović, on Wednesday said that he still expects a reply from Croatia to a protest note that the BiH Presidency sent regarding alleged pressure by the Croatian Security and Intelligence Agency (SOA) on citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina who are suspected of being connected to radical Islamic groups.
Commenting on SOA’s latest report about the security situation in Croatia, which also mentions the alleged recruiting of BiH citizens to collaborate with SOA, Džaferović said that that document is yet more proof of Croatia’s unfair relations toward Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“I expect a response from Croatia to the protest note that the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina sent due to numerous cases of abuse of citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina who stayed in Croatia and various conditions, including those regarding collaboration with (Croatia’s) their intelligence services,” Džaferović said.
In its report, SOA said the affair that was dubbed in Bosnia and Herzegovina as “Salafi” was an attempt to influence through the media the stability of Croatian state institutions and to falsely present Croatia as an “unreliable member of NATO and the EU.”
The Croat representative to the three-man Presidency, Željko Komšić, too accused Croatia on Wednesday. He told the Sarajevo-based Patria agency that Croatian police were sending all illegal migrants to BiH, including some that had not come from BiH, and in that way “amassing” them in the country.
He blamed the HDZ BiH party for the deteriorated situation with illegal migrations in the country, saying its personnel is in the most responsible positions in the border police.
HDZ BiH has absolute influence on Bosnia and Herzegovina’s border police and instead of the border police protecting the BiH-Serbia border, where the majority of migrants are entering the country, the border police are energetically protecting the BiH-Croatia border and that is why we have the situation where migrants can relatively easily enter BiH but can’t get out. We are of the impression that our neighbours are deliberately concentrating migrants in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Komšić said.
He called on Croatia’s President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović to jointly approach the problem of the migrant crisis in the two countries, in an effort to protect the citizens of BiH and Croatia as well as migrants and refugees themselves.
More news about relations between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina can be found in the Politics section.
