LAJCAK CONTINUES BILATERAL MEETINGS WITH BOSNIA'S POLITICAL LEADERS

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (July 30,2008) - The International Community's High Representative and EU Special Representative in Bosnia Miroslav Lajcak met in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo with the Bosnian President Haris Silajdzic.During the meeting was discussed a series of outstanding issues which need to be solved so that Bosnia could move further forward on its path to meeting obligations from the Stabilization and Association Agreement but also to meeting objectives and requirements for the transition of the transition of the Office of the Internationa Community's High Representative in Bosnia (OHR) into the Office of the EU Special Representative (EUSR).Therefore it is necessary to invest additional efforts at political level concerning the remaining unsettled objectives and requirements.

They also discussed an idea to have a joint meeting of all Bosnia's political leaders which was supported last week by the SDA Party President, Sulejman Tihic. Lajcak expressed his expectations that Bosnia's leaders would show their willingness to find an acceptable solution for the issue of state and defence properties as well as the legal status of the Brcko District.

“The state must have its property in order to be able to meet its constitutional competencies”, and on the other hand the Brcko District must be lawfully protected as to have the Arbitration Award implemented, Lajcak confirmed.

The Bosnian constitutional changes were also discussed and there is an agreement that the talks should start immediately after the October elections. If there is willingness in the country, but also within the International Community, that the issue of the Bosnian constitutional changes could not be delayed any longer then it was necessary to make serious preparations, they concluded.

As for the recent arrest of one of the masterminds of the genocide against Bosnians,committed during the 1992-1995 Serbian aggression against Bosnia,Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic, Lajcak and Silajdzic stressed the need for further cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the region.

Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic has been charged by the ICTY with genocide, extermination, murder, deportation, inhumane acts, and other crimes against Bosnian civilians.
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