Serbian president Tomislav Nikolic has cancelled his first official visit to Bosnia, dealing another blow to relations between the former Yugoslav republics one month before the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre.
Mr Nikolic’s visit was intended to soothe ties between Belgrade and Sarajevo ahead of events to mark the July 1995 slaughter of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces.
The trip was cancelled after Bosnian Muslims, also known as Bosniaks, reacted with fury to the arrest last week of Naser Oric (inset), a commander of their forces during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war. He was detained in Switzerland on a Serb warrant for alleged war crimes while travelling to a Srebrenica commemoration event.
Bosniak leader Bakir Izetbegovic said Belgrade and Sarajevo had previously agreed to co-operate on such cases without involving third countries. The UN court in The Hague acquitted Mr Oric on appeal in 2008, angering many Serbs who accuse his unit of committing atrocities against their ethnic peers in the Srebrenica area.
“I demand that the planned visit is postponed and does not take place until the extradition procedure before the Swiss justice system has been completed, and until Mr Oric has returned to Bosnia,” Mr Izetbegovic said.
Unity, readiness
Mr Nikolic, who was due to fly to Sarajevo yesterday, said he would only visit Bosnia when all members of its tripartite presidency – representing the country’s Bosniak, Serb and Croat communities – showed “unity and readiness.”
“Unfortunately, instead of calming tensions in the region through discussion,” he said, “certain individuals [want to] gain political points among ultra-nationalists.”
Mladen Ivanic, the Serb member of Bosnia’s presidency, said the dispute “sets us many steps back, and could create a bad atmosphere. No one person should be a reason to damage relations between the two countries.”
The looming anniversary of Srebrenica – the worst massacre in Europe since the second World War – has put additional strain on ties between Bosnia and Serbia, and on inter-ethnic relations in Bosnia.
Belgrade and Bosnian Serbs are irate over a draft resolution that Britain plans to submit to the UN security council to mark the anniversary of the massacre. Serbia and Bosnian Serbs say Srebrenica was a grave atrocity, but not genocide.
“Supposedly, the goal of the resolution is the reconciliation process, but the text contains 20 references to genocide and one to reconciliation,” complained Serbia’s foreign minister, Ivica Dacic.
The dispute between Bosnia and Serbia comes as neighbouring Macedonia slips back into a crisis that some claimed had been resolved by an agreement this month to hold early parliamentary elections by the end of next April.
Macedonian election
Prime minister Nikola Gruevski is refusing opposition demands to step down six months before the election, to allow an interim administration to oversee preparations for the ballot and ensure a fair vote.
Opposition leader Zoran Zaev has released wiretapped conversations that implicate Mr Gruevski and allies in corrupt and criminal schemes.
Mr Zaev said yesterday that he would “radicalise” street protests if his demands were not met.