Deputy of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) Parliament, Damir Arnaut asked the Chairman of BiH Council of Ministers Zoran Tegeltija and Foreign Minister Bisera Turkovic why during almost two years of their mandate, no country in the world abolished visas for BiH citizens, holders of ordinary passports.
Arnaut also asked why the ruling coalition agrees to the humiliating and discriminatory treatment of some Middle Eastern and South American countries, which require visas for BiH citizens, but not for citizens of almost all other European countries, including many countries that are not European Union (EU) members, just like BiH.
He mentioned the examples of the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, Lebanon, Kuwait, and Egypt, where citizens of neighboring Serbia can travel without visas, while visas are necessary for our citizens.
“The situation is similar with the three countries of South America – Argentina, Peru, and Uruguay – which do not have a visa regime for Serbia, but have a visa regime for BiH,” Arnaut noted.
He also underlined that, if we count Saudi Arabia, whose holders of diplomatic and official passports can enter BiHwithout visas, and this is not reciprocally applied to our officials, “there is a lack of reciprocity in as many as nine of the eleven cases mentioned.”
“It is incomprehensible that citizens of all three mentioned South American and five Middle Eastern countries can travel to BiHwithout visas, although our citizens are exposed to enormouscosts of obtaining their visas because only two of those eight countries have embassies in Sarajevo,” Arnaut claims.
So, Arnaut asked for concrete answers as to whether the BiH Minister of Foreign Affairs would obtain the abolition of visas for the citizens of BiH for any of these countries in the remaining year of his term, and whether the BiH Council of Ministers, which is responsible for it, would introduce reciprocity for citizens of those countries if those countries refuse to relax their visa regime by starting to treat the citizens of BiH at least in the same way as the citizens of the Republic of Serbia.
E.Dz.
Source: Klix.ba
