International community envoy destabilising Bosnia: PM
(BANJA LUKA) - Bosnian Prime Minister Nikola Spiric has written to the UN accusing the international community's envoy of destabilising his country, the SRNA news agency reported Sunday.
Spiric urged United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to remove the international high representative in Bosnia, Valentin Inzko, who has powers to impose laws and sack officials in the country's two semi-autonomous entities.
"Continuing foreign intervention in local political issues is destabilising and undermines the creation of a consensus... as well as reform efforts," SRNA quoted the Bosnian Serb leader as saying.
The Office of the High Representative (OHR) "should be closed in order to enable Bosnian political leaders to achieve legitimate progress," he said, charging that Inzko was "contributing to non-functional governance in Bosnia."
The international community wants to bring the mandate of the high representative to an end to speed up reforms in the war-scarred country and its progress towards joining the European Union.
The plan is to transform the OHR into the office of the European Union special envoy to Bosnia. But this has been postponed several times, due to continuing political instability.
The call by Spiric comes ahead of an EU-Balkans summit in Sarajevo on June 2, which aims to give new impetus to the region's European integration.
Representatives of the United States and Russia, a historical ally of Serbs, will also be present at the meeting.
Since the end of its 1992-1995 war Bosnia has been split into two entities, the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Serbs' Republika Srpska. The two are linked by weak central institutions while each has its own government.
The European Union is pushing for a change to the constitution to strengthen Bosnia's central government, which it says is necessary if Bosnia is to become an EU member.
But Bosnian Serbs strongly oppose any strengthening of joint institutions at the expense of their entity's autonomy.
In an interview to AFP this weekend, Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik said the idea that "complete centralisation is the best solution (for Bosnia) is unacceptable for us and we will always reject it."