BREAKTHROUGH ON BOSNIAN POLICE REFORM

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (September 29,2007) – The Bosnian leaders and leaders of the Serbians living in Bosnia reached an agreement yesterday to reform the two ethnically divided police forces in the country.

The European Union had warned that Bosnia would not be allowed to sign the Stability and Association Agreement, the first step to join the EU, until it agrees to unify Bosnia's ethnically separate police forces.

It was reported that a member of the Bosnian Presidency Haris Silajdzic and political leader of the Serbians living in Bosnia,Milorad Dodik,signed the agreement proposed by the International Community's High Representative in Bosnia, Slovak diplomat Miroslav Lajcak.

"We hope this protocol would be good enough for Bosnia to sign the Stability and Association Agreement with the European Union," Bosnian Presidency member Haris Silajdzic said.

"This agreement does not answer all questions, but we want the police reform and of course we want to reform Bosnia," said Silajdzic, who first rejected Lajcak's reform proposal as unacceptable.

"If we decided otherwise, we would have decided against a European future," he added.

At the end of the 1992-1995 Serbian,Monternegrin and Croatian aggressions against Bosnia, Bosnia was internally divided into two administrative entities : the FBIH and the genocidal Serbian creature in Bosnia "the RS", each with their own separate police forces.

The European Union has insisted the police be organized at the Bosnian state level, financed from a single budget and free of political bias.

It made the reform a key condition for Bosnia to sign the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA), the first step on the long road to full membership of the EU.

The Office of the International Community's High Representative in Bosnia (OHR) confirmed it had received the Dodik-Silajdzic protocol, which would be studied by the relevant EU institutions. The office advised caution.

"We would urge everyone to refrain from interpreting the document as only the European Commission can give an opinion whether this document is in line with the three EU principles," OHR's spokesman stated.

Bosnians first rejected Lajcak's plan, saying it fell short of unifying the ethnically separate police forces. The Serbians living in Bosnia said they would not give up their own force.

Experts representing their respective political parties had earlier yesterday failed to agree on the technical criteria for the reform.

But,Bosnian Presidency member Haris Silajdzic said that political leaders realized at the end that they needed to pursue reforms in order to achieve their common goal - enabling Bosnia to join the EU.