Bosnia signed a pact with the European Union today that is the first step towards eventual EU membership, nearly 13 years after the end of its civil war.
Its leaders said they hoped the signing of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement in Luxembourg would help bury the past and bring in a new period of stability and prosperity.
Aside from newly created Kosovo, Bosnia was the only country in the Balkans not to have reached this stage after Serbia signed its own long-delayed SAA on April 29th.
"This is a great day for the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina. You have achieved part of the dream," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said after the signing ceremony. "This relationship is not for today, it is for ever."
Bosnian President Haris Silajdzic called it a "definite milestone" in Bosnian history. "By signing the SAA, Bosnia and Herzegovina has shown that whatever was happening in the 1990s ... is now completely done away with," he told a joint news conference with Solana.
Bosnian Prime Minister Nikola Spiric vowed Bosnia would meet EU conditions for deepening ties and looked to a future that would offer Bosnians better jobs, living standards and an end to visa restrictions. EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn cautioned that much work lay ahead.
Meanwhile, EU foreign ministers today postponed a decision on whether to lift sanctions on Cuba today, leaving it to a summit of the 27-nation bloc later in the week.
Foreign Minister of Spain Miguel Angel Moratinos said Germany and other countries asked for more time to decide on the sensitive move, which would put the EU at odds with Washington's calls for a release of political prisoners.
The EU measures were imposed after a crackdown on dissent in 2003 and include a freeze on visits by high-level officials. However unlike the 1962 US embargo, they do not prevent trade and investment.
The sanctions were formally suspended in 2005 but abolition would be seen as encouragement by the EU for a more reforms by Cuban President Raul Castro, who took over after the February 24 retirement of his brother Fidel.
Former colonial power Spain has long led calls for an end to the EU sanctions. Moratinos said he was hopeful the bloc would lift the sanctions this week and Finland's Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb saw "a clear majority" for such a move.
"The most likely is that Thursday we'll be able to ... lift definitively the 2003 sanctions and launch a dialogue on human rights, including with the Cuban authorities," Moratinos said.
But the move would require all EU states to agree. It has met resistance from the bloc's ex-communist members, led by the Czech Republic.