The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Elmedin Konaković, stated today in Sarajevo that he considers the adoption of the Resolution on the Genocide in Srebrenica at the UN to be the greatest result of BiH diplomacy in the past year.
At a press conference on the occasion of the second year of his mandate, Konaković said that in 2024, the successes and the “green light” from Brussels for BiH and the successful evacuation of our people from war-torn areas are particularly important, thanks to the establishment of a headquarters that deals with these evacuations.
“There is one unresolved case in Gaza, there is a problem with the Egyptian and Israeli sides. We have not been able to get permission for him to leave. We are still lobbying intensively to release a man who is Bosnian and Herzegovinian,” explained the head of BiH diplomacy.
He pointed out that in the past two years he has held 178 bilateral meetings with world leaders, and that together with the meetings held by his deputies, this represents an absolute record for BiH diplomacy.
Konaković emphasized that he is particularly proud of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s return to the mission of connecting the East and the West, thanks to the improvement of relations with some Eastern countries that had been damaged in the previous period.
He recalled that the Law on Foreign Affairs was adopted by the Council of Ministers of BiH and still needs to be adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, and that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has produced 20 new young diplomats.
Konaković stated that the statuses of the diplomatic and consular missions of BiH in Podgorica, New York, the Vatican, Skopje and Tehran have been resolved, and that the opening of missions of the United Arab Emirates, Denmark, Albania and Ireland has been opened in BiH or has been announced.
He specified that 56 diplomatic passports had been issued and announced that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would soon announce scientific ambassadors for BiH. Adventure tourism in BiH
In the coming period, Bosnia and Herzegovina must harmonize its visa regime with the European Union (EU) when it comes to six countries, with guidelines for one country per year, said the Minister of Foreign Affairs of BiH.
“We had an obligation to harmonize our visa regime with the EU. Bahrain and Oman have visas for BiH, there are six more countries that we must harmonize with the EU. We have some guidelines for it to be at least one per year. We are working on it,” he said today in Sarajevo.
The European Commission expects Bosnia and Herzegovina to better and faster harmonization with the EU visa policy due to the increased risk of illegal migration via the Western Balkan route, according to a report published at the end of last year.
Bosnia and Herzegovina has a visa-free regime with seven countries whose citizens require visas to enter the EU: Azerbaijan, China, Kuwait, Qatar, Russia, Turkey, and citizens of Saudi Arabia do not need visas during the summer months.
The head of Bosnian diplomacy reiterated that the EU is the number one foreign policy priority of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“NATO would always be number one for me, but the specificity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the blockades from the Serbian people, which I hope will end someday, are not a reason to be optimistic, because we still do not see an objective opportunity for full integration. But the way of cooperation with NATO is being dynamized,” said Konaković.
The Berlin Process, he stated, is a very important process that shows that the Western Balkans can cooperate economically and that as such it can be integrated into Europe’s large and powerful market, as part of preparations for the Berlin Process Summit.
The Troika parties (SDP, NiP and NS) yesterday broke up the coalition with the SNSD and, with the support of the SDS and PDP, removed Nebojša Radmanović from the collegium of the House of Representatives of the BiH Parliament, and then the arrested BiH Minister of Security Nenad Nešić.
Konaković believes that the new coalition should be made up of pro-European parties.
“For the Coalition of the Three, there is no partner for the SNSD, for us the SNSD has been erased with an eraser. In the first year of the mandate, the SNSD was a good partner and since March, when we got the green light, Milorad Dodik was ordered by the Russian Federation to stop the path to the EU,” said Konaković.
He added that the most realistic majority at the state level is HDZ – SNSD – SDA, Fena news agency writes.
