ZAGREB, February 5, 2018 – The Bosniak member of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Presidency, Bakir Izetbegović, on Sunday called for relaxation of relations between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina and between the Bosniaks and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, warned that a third entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina was not possible without a war and opposed the planned construction of the Pelješac Bridge without first demarcating the border and ensuring Bosnia and Herzegovina access to the high seas.
Speaking in a current affairs talk show on the Croatian public television network HRT, the leader of the predominantly Bosniak Party of Democratic Action (SDA) said that the Bosniaks wanted peace and cooperation with the Croats and good neighbourly relations between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia.
He noted, however, that Croatia was treating Bosnia and Herzegovina “paternalistically”, citing as problems properties in Croatia worth billions of euros that have not been returned to his country for 22 years, the use by Croatia of water from Lake Buško without paying compensation and the planned construction of the Pelješac Bridge.
Izetbegovic emphasised that the Bosnia and Herzegovina Presidency had been opposing this project for years, adding that the issue of border demarcation and access to the high seas should be dealt with first. He said that this issue should not be reduced to the Bosniaks and the SDA. “We want a document ratifying this, a document that will define the border and the navigation route from Bosnia and Herzegovina to the high seas as provided for under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea,” he said.
Only Bosniak political leaders have expressed opposition to the Pelješac Bridge construction project, while the Serbs and Croats consider it to be Croatia’s business.
Asked about the selective prosecution of war crimes committed during Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Croat-Bosniak conflict in the 1990s and specifically about failure to prosecute war crimes Bosnia and Herzegovina Army soldiers had committed against Croats in Križančevo Selo, Izetbegović said that a hundred times more war crimes had been committed against Bosniaks than they had committed.
“The BH Army committed one or two percent of the war crimes and those were systematically prevented, while on the other side they were systematically planned and encouraged. You cannot equate those things. This does not mean that war crimes sites should not be visited and war criminals tried,” Izetbegović said.
Speaking of changes to electoral law, Izetbegović said that the SDA supported a model that was proposed four years ago by EU Enlargement Commission Stefan Fuele as a good balance between the civic and ethnic principles and a good guarantee for the Croats. He asked why the leader of the Croat HDZ party, Dragan Čović, had rejected it.
Izetbegovicć recalled that the EU was insisting on implementing the European Court of Human Rights ruling in the Sejdić-Finci case to ensure that ethnic minorities could at least theoretically be elected and that model made it possible.
“Our constitution does not say that these should be representatives of one specific nation. If that had been the case, it would have specified that Croats would be elected by the Croat electorate, but it says that it will be a Croat, a Bosniak and a Serb, and no one is forbidden to vote for anyone,” he said.
Croat politicians insist that Croat deputies to the upper, ethnic-based chamber of the parliament of the Bosniak-Croat Federation entity and a Croat representative on the three-member Presidency should be elected predominantly by the Croats rather than have Bosniaks and Serbs use their numerical supremacy to elect their representatives for the Croats. The Bosniak parties, on the other hand, insist that all voters should be allowed to choose their representatives regardless of whether they are being elected to the lower or the upper chamber of parliament.
Asked what would happen if Željko Komšić were re-elected to the Presidency as the Croat representative given that the Croats do not support him in large numbers, Izetbegović said that nothing special would happen.
“I don’t think that will happen. I don’t think he will be elected. If I were him, I wouldn’t do it for the reasons you mentioned. What will happen if he is elected? Well, nothing special. We will have a Presidency member and the Croats have a number of positions from which they can stop anything they want,” he said.
Asked if a third, Croat majority entity was possible, Izetbegović said that this idea was being used as a form of pressure on the Bosniaks and warned that the creation of such an entity would not be possible without a war. “This is in the long term one of the mechanisms Mr Ćović is using to put pressure on the Bosniaks. That is unlikely to happen, without a conflict,” Izetbegović said, noting that 60 percent of the Croats live in mixed communities with the Bosniaks.
“Where would the line of the third entity go? The line they failed to draw in 1993 with the HVO (Bosnian Croat military), after a joint criminal enterprise, after the destruction of Herzegovina, destruction of hundreds of mosques and after erasing the vestiges of the Bosniaks, after concentration camps, Dretelj and so on. How are they going to do that and with whom? This is nonsense that is being used for their own electorate and as a form of pressure on the Bosniaks,” Izetbegović said, calling for relaxation of relations between the Bosniaks and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Asked if he thought there was a danger of a new war in Bosnia and Herzegovina considering threats coming from the country’s Serb entity, Republika Srpska, Izetbegović said that he was only making warnings and that the Bosniaks would certainly not be the first to start it.
“I warned people who keep saying they will tear up Bosnia and Herzegovina that they should bear in mind Srebrenica, Tomašica, Brčko and hundreds of places where civilians were killed during the war and that they will not able to do that without a conflict. Bakir Izetbegović or the Bosniaks will certainly not be the ones to start it. It is well known who has started all the conflicts in the Balkans,” he said.
Asked why the Croats in the Federation entity cannot have a Croatian-language television channel, Izetbegović said he believed this was not necessary. “The Croats should be present on every television in Bosnia and Herzegovina, their language, politics and views. I don’t think a separate channel is necessary. There should be no further territorial segregation.”
Commenting on the so-called Livno Declaration, which accuses the Bosniaks of aspiring to establish a caliphate in Bosnia and Herzegovina, an issue that was also raised at a recent meeting of the Presidency members in Brussels, Izetbegović said that this was nonsense aimed at “undermining the Bosniak position, the position of a benevolent nation which follows European standards, which really wants peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Balkans, which has made so many compromises and taken so many blows. It is unfair and unwise of someone who expects a strategic partnership and cooperation between the Croats and Bosniaks.”
As for a threat of Islamic radicalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Izetbegović said that in the last 18 months not a single radical or extremist incident had been recorded or anyone going to fight in Syria and Iraq or returning from there. “Those people have been put on trial and most of them have ended up in jail,” he added.
Explaining the message from his late father Alija Izetbegović to Turkish President Recep Tayyin Erdogan that he was leaving Bosnia and Herzegovina in his care, Izetbegović said that Turkey and Bosnia and Herzegovina were friendly countries cooperating in many areas, that Turkey was helping Bosnia and Herzegovina on its path to the EU and NATO, and was a major investor.
