Becirovic misused the commemorative event to promote an anti-Serb agenda

Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Denis Becirovic misused the commemorative event and the tragic occasion to promote his anti-Serb agenda, rather than to help reconciliation among peoples or enhance internal cohesion and political dialogue within his own country.

It is indicative that Becirovic, when he speaks in the first person plural, only has the Bosniak population of Bosnia and Herzegovina in mind, while he perceives the other two constituent peoples as some kind of foreign body and a destabilizing factor.

To him, the political will of Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is guaranteed by the Dayton Agreement and the constitution of that country, is not relevant at all, and he interprets any special trait of Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina or any specific feature of their political interests as a threat, even though the Dayton architecture itself also guarantees the legitimacy and equality of the political wills of the three constituent peoples and the two entities.

Becirovic's speech is a call to deepen misunderstandings and hatred within Bosnia and Herzegovina and retailor the country's Dayton architecture, and that, unlike the made-up threats he spoke about today, is also the only real threat to stability in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region.

Countless times in the past, Serbia has insisted that it is ready to have the same quality of relations with the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina as it now has with the Republic of Srpska. However, Sarajevo has turned a deaf ear to that and demonstrated no readiness to respond to our extended hand in the spirit of good-neighbourliness.

It was more convenient for the Bosniak political elite in Sarajevo, for ideological or daily political reasons, to work to ensure that bridges of cooperation are not built with Serbia, both in the symbolic and literal sense, which resulted in a voluntary self-exclusion of Sarajevo from joint projects and initiatives that would undoubtedly benefited both countries.

There are no Greater Serbia declarations but only efforts by the people of the Republic of Srpska not to fall victim to Sarajevo's unreasonable isolationist policy or be held hostage to the unrealistic anti-Dayton ambitions of the Bosniak political elite in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The recently adopted Declaration on the Protection of National and Political Rights and the Common Future of the Serbian People, which Becirovic is trying to present as a Greater Serbia manifesto, is fully in line with the Dayton Agreement, does not in any word question the territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina and certainly does not contain anything that could be perceived as a threat to the Bosniak people, with whom the Serbian people wants to have the best possible relations.

Serbia, led by President Aleksandar Vucic, will continue, despite the dangerous political messages coming from Becirovic and his ideological peers, to insist on strengthening ties with all peoples and will always be ready to be the first to offer a hand of cooperation and reconciliation.