The Deputy Chairperson of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bisera Turkovic, has sent a letter of protest to Dritan Abazovic, the Prime Minister of Montenegro and the coordinator of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The letter refers to the presence of the Ministers of Justice and Finance of Montenegro, Marko Kovac and Aleksandar Damjanovic, respectively, at the academy, marking 9 January as a day of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian entity of the Serb Republic (RS).
“I am sending a protest to the Government of Montenegro, a friendly and neighboring country. By the decision of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 9 January as the Day of the RS was declared unconstitutional and discriminatory, and the presence of government officials damages the neighborly relations between our two countries. Celebrating 9 January as the Day of the RS, according to the decision of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, violates the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and discriminates against members of the constituent nations of Bosnia and Herzegovina”, the letter states.
As the minister has pointed out, the presence of ministers from the current government of Montenegro at the celebration of an illegal holiday is an act of disrespect for the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially considering the fact that the Prime Minister of the Government of Montenegro, Dritan Abazovic, attended earlier the commemoration of the Genocide Remembrance Day in Srebrenica on 11 July last year.
“I would like to remind you that on 9 January 1992, there was an attack on the constitutional and legal order of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the prelude to aggression, ethnic cleansing, mass crimes and genocide, which were judged by international courts. The fact that the ministers of the Government of Montenegro and member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization agreed to attend the ceremony where the medal was awarded to Vladimir Putin, the president of the Russian Federation that has been carrying out aggression against Ukraine, is also surprising. Montenegrin officials are always welcome to Bosnia and Herzegovina and we are ready to work even harder to connect our two countries, but the key prerequisite for cooperation is mutual respect and respect for the decisions of courts and relevant institutions of friendly countries”, states the letter addressed to Abazovic.
