The President of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) Bakir Izetbegović spoke out after the announcement of the former US Ambassador to BiH, Michael Murphy.
Murphy made claims in his announcement that Izetbegović told US officials during the negotiations on the 2021-2022 constitutional reform that he could live with the division of BiH.
Izetbegović called the former US ambassador’s claims a completely unfounded and unconvincing lie.
“I have never discussed the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina with the US administration or any other international interlocutor. No one has even mentioned such a thing, let alone proposed it. The topic of the conversation during that period was exclusively the Election Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the demands of the HDZ BiH, which I rejected precisely because they would lead to additional ethnic divisions and the cementing of discrimination. There are numerous witnesses to this, including the participants in the negotiations in Neum,” Izetbegović stated.
In his reaction, Izetbegović called on Michael Murphy to present to the public evidence for his claim.
“Let him show the record, official note, recording or any document that confirms what he said. All those conversations were most certainly recorded. If there is no evidence or witnesses, and there won’t be any, then it is a conscious lie of a former diplomat who is trying to later justify his own failures in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” he pointed out.
Furthermore, Izetbegović accused Murphy of spreading falsehoods about the SDA even while serving as the US ambassador to BiH.
“He claimed that the SDA is financed by criminals’ money. He claimed that OSA, on the orders of the SDA, is eavesdropping on political opponents through BH Telecom. This thesis was also repeated by Troika cadres at the time, only to be later denied by the very people whom the Troika appointed to head BH Telecom. So, this is not the first time that Michael Murphy has made serious accusations without evidence. This has, unfortunately, become his political pattern. It is particularly indicative that Murphy has now, after the announcement of my candidacy, ‘remembered’ an alleged event from five years ago that never happened. It is obvious that the Troika mentor is trying to help a failed project that he himself politically installed from retirement. That project has suffered a complete collapse, and Murphy is today trying to divert attention from the catastrophic situation that his policies have produced with new lies,” Izetbegović stated.
He accused Murphy of bearing direct political responsibility for part of the current chaos in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“Instead of admitting that the policy of pressure, blackmail, labeling the SDA and imposing the Troika has produced an institutional crisis, weakened the pro-Bosniak bloc and encouraged separatist policies, he is trying to falsify events and fabricate statements. It is particularly frivolous for a former ambassador of a major country to introduce formulations such as ‘maybe’ into the public sphere. A diplomat who uses the word ‘maybe’ when accusing someone of agreeing to the division of the country is not presenting facts, but gossip. By this logic, one could say that ‘maybe’ Murphy acted under the influence of various lobbying, political or interest centers that wanted to deal with the SDA, such as those documented in the Sky application. But serious people do not build policies on the words ‘maybe’. Serious people present evidence,” he points out.
Finally, he said that Bosnia and Herzegovina was and will remain a single state.
“Those who defended it when it was most difficult have no one to justify themselves to, least of all those who, with their political experiments, opened space for the forces that are openly attacking it today,” concluded Izetbegović.
