Aleksandar Bocan-Harchenko, Russian ambassador to Serbia and former Russian ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina(BiH), expressed several controversial views while commenting on the situation in BiH.
Bocan-Harchenko said that based on the demands formulated by the West, a solid BiH is not possible, “because every year there are more and more requests to take away the jurisdiction of the Republika Srpska (RS) and abandon the Dayton Peace Agreement, which is the only possible basis for the survival of BiH”.
”Every year, Russia had increasingly difficult cooperation with the international community within the framework of the Peace Implementation Council (PIC) and always had a dissenting opinion that they did not take into account because they demanded that the conclusions be reached without the support of the Russian Federation,” said Bochan-Kharchenko and added that “it undermined and destroyed some active and fruitful international activity of BiH which had to be directed to support the Dayton Peace Agreement.
He also stated that he would not be surprised by Russia’s decision to officially withdraw from the PIC. He explained that during the time he was the Russian ambassador to BiH, there was a rise in the development of relations between the RS and the Russian Federation. He also commented on the candidate status for our country.
”I believe that obtaining BiH candidate status for the European Union (EU) membership is an additional tool of pressure on the RS, because BiH must move from Dayton to Brussels, which essentially represents the centralization of BiH and the taking away of the competences of the RS. Candidate status is a very serious and dangerous matter, and it includes the suspension of relations and cooperation between the RS and the Russian Federation,” noted Bocan-Kharchenko.
Bocan-Kharchenko said that Russia is interested in finding a political solution for Kosovo that would be acceptable to Belgrade, and that Moscow will not allow the dismemberment of Orthodoxy, because its goal is the unity of Orthodoxy.
