BOSNIAN PRESIDENCY MEMBER HARIS SILAJDZIC: OHR'S MANDATE SHOULD BE EXPANDED

BRUSSELS, Belgium (February 28,2008) – The Peace Implementation Council (PIC) Managing Board and members of the Bosnian Presidency stated yesterday that the Dayton Peace Agreement needs to be implemented and that the EU and NATO associations are the only alternative Bosnia has.

Differences regarding dynamics, methodology, necessary conditions and the role of the International Community in the process have remained mainly the same.

The International Community's High Representative in Bosnia Miroslav Lajcak stated that there is an enormous misbalance between the citizens’ expectations and practical actions of their elected political representatives, in relation to reform processes like reconstruction of police forces and administrative reform. “Leaders are absolutely responsible”, Lajcak concluded.

The President of the Bosnian Presidency Zeljko Komsic advocated that the conditions for a serious step forward to the EU should be made as son as possible. In that sense, he mentioned signing of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) between Bosnia and the European Union. He also expressed reserves that the most important priorities in the process are “listed” the best way.

For him, the most important issue and the main priority of all the factors in the country, including the Office of the International Community's High Representative in Bosnia (OHR), should be the country’s security and personal security of all Bosnian citizens.

The Bosnian President Zeljko Komsic is of the opinion that the OHR’s mandate is not disputable, and neither is reorganization of the present Office in the process of Bosnia’s association to the EU, for, Komsic stated,the OHR has not been acting as efficiently as necessary lately.

Haris Silajdzic, a member of the Bosnian Presidency, is of the opinion that the OHR’s mandate should be expanded and that the Office should use all the Bonn Powers singed December 1997.

A member of the Bosnian Presidency Nebojsa Radmanovic is of the opinion that the transformation of the OHR to the EU Office is a natural process and that the International Community’s authorities in Bosnia will be “in accordance to the conditions the country is in”.

At the end of the meeting yesterday,the Peace Implementation Council Main Board condemned a resolution against Kosovo independence proclamation adopted recently by the genocidal Serbian creature in Bosnia ("RS").
.