Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Zlatko Lagumdžija, in his reaction to the statement of the Chairperson of the BiH Presidency Željka Cvijanović, stressed that all key goals were clearly incorporated into the final Statement of the Security Council.
Lagumdžija was reacting to Cvijanović’s claim that “not a single sentence that Zlatko Lagumdžija lobbied for, not one supporting Christian Schmidt, nor one condemning Milorad Dodik, was included in the Statement of the Security Council”.
“As for my work, or as they call it, lobbying, I considered it of paramount importance to express the full consensus of all 15 members of the Security Council on three fundamental positions. First, the Dayton Agreement with all its annexes has their consensual and full support, which means that the entire institutional and constitutional legal framework that has been built accordingly over three decades must be respected. Second, EUFOR should have undivided support for acting in accordance with its mandate, which is clear and complementary to the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina. And third, no one should have any doubt that the Security Council, as a whole, fully stands behind the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which are unambiguously defined by the Dayton Peace Agreement,” Lagumdžija said.
He added that he “does not know what the Chairperson of the Presidency was reading” when she considered it important to state that “not a single sentence that Zlatko Lagumdžija lobbied for was included in the Security Council Statement.” Instead of repeating the three stated positions, as Lagumdžija stated, he merely quoted three capital positions precisely stated in the Security Council Statement, which, he added, was not difficult to notice, bearing in mind that the Security Council Statement as a whole has six sentences.
It states that “The Security Council reaffirms its full support for the implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement with all its annexes. The members of the Security Council express their support for the EUFOR Althea operations to act in accordance with their mandate. The Security Council remains unreservedly committed to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina in full accordance with the Dayton Peace Agreement”.
“What is important in the Security Council Statement is what is written in it, not what is missing, because it reflects the position of all 15 members of the Security Council. However, it should be said that, as for her claim that the Security Council Statement does not contain the Security Council’s support for Schmidt and condemnation of Dodik, it should be said that it is exactly the opposite: the Security Council Statement did not include her demands that the discussion be conducted on the OHR, and not on Dodik’s secessionism – demands that the Presidency Chair sent to the members of the Security Council, and which were promoted on her behalf by the Russian ambassador,” Lagumdžija said.
He recalled that on this topic last summer, the UN Secretary-General sent her a clarification that the High Representative was appointed by the Peace Implementation Council (PIC), and not the Security Council, “so this time they missed the topic, place and time as well.”
“In any case, if I were the President of the RS and the Chairman of the Presidency, I would not have the slightest reason to be satisfied with the latest Security Council Statement. On the contrary!”, Lagumdžija said in his reaction, Fena writes.
