The Ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) to the United Nations (UN), Zlatko Lagumdzija, spoke yesterday in an interview about the recent events at the UN General Assembly and responded to the statements made by the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic.
The most important September at the UN
Lagumdzija said that this is the most important September in the UN and that BiH hasn’t had such a rich program in a long time.
“I have to point out that this year, this is the fifth day since the Summit of the Future and the UN Assembly began, this is the most important September in the UN. This year we had a coordinated and aligned program, we have never had such a rich program before, and the presentation was just one of the points that attracted a lot of attention.”
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had a program this year that was more focused on multilateral issues than bilateral agreements,” Lagumdzija said.
Regarding the statements and claims of the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, Lagumdzija pointed out:
“This statement you are referring to is a pitiful picture of Serbian attempts to draw attention to themselves in the last few days. After the speech by President Becirovic, Vucic requested a reply, and it was explained to him that a reply could not be requested to a head of state’s address. They sent that letter, where we could see from the public what it was about, which contained a brutal number of lies about BiH.”
“From Vucic’s mouth, we could hear that Serbia is a founder of the Non-Aligned Movement and a founder of the UN. To remind you, BiH has been a member of the UN longer than Serbia. When we were admitted in 1992 as an independent state, Serbia was excommunicated from the UN. Another thing is that Serbia constantly appropriates Yugoslavia’s great state achievements. BiH has just as much right as Serbia to inherit what Tito’s Yugoslavia did. Moreover, we could say that we have more right considering the resurgence of the Chetnik movement in recent times,” Lagumdzija explained.
Lagumdzija added that it took Vucic a year to distance himself from anti-civilization ideas.
“It took Vucic a year to realize that he needed to distance himself from anti-civilization ideas. So, BiH is not political Sarajevo, Becirovic is the president, I am the ambassador, Konakovic is the minister, and what is causing panic in the Greater Serbia circles is because they think they can directly attack the Dayton Peace Agreement.
To remind you, because this is a despair over the adoption of the Srebrenica Resolution, they said that it would lead to destabilization in the region. A few days ago, I met people here who represent Serbia, and I said, well, September has come, and not a single head has fallen because of the resolution,” he said and added:
“To conclude: We did not send any “circular letter” accusing Serbia over Tito, Serbia and Vucic have been trying to do this for a year. Now, when they see that the world is laughing at them and looking at them as barbarians who have appeared here, they decide to give up, and I congratulate them if they do.”
“He looks ridiculous”
Lagumdzija also pointed out that Vucic’s attempts look ridiculous and that what he is doing seems cheap.
“In the measure that Serbia believes that BiH has the Republika Srpska (RS), which is part of BiH, I want to say that RS without BiH does not exist. In the measure that the all-Serbian assembly is an attempt at creating, mind you, a national council led by elected officials of the RS government. The question arises whether they might want to create a new state, and there is nothing of that. If they want new connections, let them talk to the mayors of Chicago and Vienna. They can do such things in that way, but in this way that Vucic has now tried, he looks ridiculous. His awarding of people who tried to be on his side, people don’t believe me when I say that, for example, he awarded the president of Congo for voting against the Srebrenica Resolution.
This no longer makes sense, what we are getting from Belgrade and the seat of their mission. It is evident that Vucic doesn’t see that he looks ridiculous in New York and that what they are doing seems cheap,” Lagumdzija said, N1 writes.
E.Dz.
