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Russia advocates closing OHR office in Bosnia
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 05 - 11 - 2009


Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said
today in Sarajevo that the office of the international
representative in Bosnia should be closed or transformed to give
local authorities greater decision-making authority, dpa reported.
Lavrov in Bosnia on a one-day visit, said at a news conference in
Sarajevo that by closing the Office of the High Representative (OHR),
the international community would not leave Bosnia but would be
prevented from interfering in Bosnia"s internal affairs.
"This step is necessary to strengthen Bosnia"s statehood. It
should be done to allow Bosnians to take independent decisions,"
Lavrov said after meeting with Bosnian Foreign Minister Sven Alkalaj.
The OHR was established soon after the 1992-95 war to oversee the
peaceful implementation of the Dayton peace agreement. For a long
time, Bosnian Serbs have been calling for closure of the OHR and for
the international community to stop interfering in their internal
affairs. In this aspiration, they have enjoyed Russian support.
The position of Bosnia"s Serbs and Russia differ from those of the
European Union and the United States.
During the talks on constitutional changes last month, the EU and
US proposed closing the OHR if Bosnian Serbs accepted the changes,
but no progress was made in negotiations on the matter.
After the war Bosnia was divided into largely two entities - the
Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat Federation Bosnia-Herzegovina with
weak central institutions.
The West has been insisting on strengthening the central
institutions at the expense of the two entities. Bosnian Serbs, who
make up a third of the country"s four million population, rejected
such ideas and have threatened a referendum to join their mother
state, Serbia.
Bosnian Croats also want to have an independent state within
Bosnia, while only Bosnian Muslims, who make up half the inhabitants,
desire a united Bosnia with strong central government and the OHR to
remain.


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