The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Bisera Turkovic, yesterday participated in the NATO summit in Bucharest, where she spoke with the Secretary General of the Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg.
“I had a very nice conversation with the Secretary General that lasted a bit longer, in which we exchanged our observations and expectations. This was a special format in which time was dedicated to Georgia, Moldova and BiH. It seems to me that the situation here is the most stable and that we are not threatened like these two countries. There is evident progress here, the elections are behind us, the government is still being formed, but there are no significant problems in that process,” explainedTurkovic.
She pointed out that the conversation took place in a positive atmosphere with expressed wishes to support BiH on the Euro-Atlantic path.
“We also have adopted reform programs for 2021 and 2022. So, things are moving forward progressively and I think that is to the general satisfaction of all of them here. There were many congratulations in that direction, from Blinken to Secretary Stoltenberg and the ministers who paid attention to our progress. Everyone is in favor of giving BiH further aid, of going to the organization of the Armed Forces,” she noted.
“We didn’t talk about membership, but about bringing BiHcloser to NATO. I don’t think there are any reservations about that. What we heard today were only good intentions to help BiH,” added Turkovic yesterday.
One of the topics was Russian pressure and influence in BiH, Georgia and Moldova.
“The other two countries have really direct problems, they don’t have full control of their country. When it comes to BiH, we can talk about certain pretensions and political visions, but not at all about the presence of foreign troops on our territory, and it seems to me that there are fewer and fewer such dangers,” she stated.
Furthermore, she emphasized that BiH is going in the right direction when it comes to the Euro-Atlantic integration.
“We hope for candidate status for BiH. That was underlined even today. The ministers I spoke with expressed their readiness in that field. I do not agree that there are conflicting opinions when it comes to candidate status, I think that all countries are very much in favor of it. There can be certain reservations when it comes to the fulfillment of the obligations given to BiH and in which BiH is unfortunately still quite slow,” said the head of BiH diplomacy yesterday.
She mentioned judicial reforms and the adoption of the EUROPOL rulebook as priorities.
“Any move in that direction would remove potential reserved opinions,” concluded Turkovic, Klix.ba reports.
E.Dz.
