Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia Ivan Mrkić arrived today in Sarajevo in his first official visit. He was invited by the Vice Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Minister of Foreign Affairs of BiH Zlatko Lagumdžija.
Lagumdžija and Mrkić signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the Council of Ministers of BiH and the Government of Serbia on cooperation in the field of the European Integration.
Lagumdžija said that the Memorandum is a sort of a tool for the improvement of bilateral cooperation, so that BiH can follow the pace of its neighbours to the EU.
”Everything we’ve done in the past six months and everything we intend to do in the next six months will remove the long stagnation in resolving our bilateral issues. Property relations, borders, etc. are issues that will be hard to agree upon, but we shall work on that”, said Lagumdžija.
Lagumdžija said that after the signing of Memorandum a very concrete and precise work of the joint teams will begin, which will prepare both BiH and Serbia for Croatian accession to the EU.
He said that he and Mrkić agreed about the granting of joint consular services to country in which BiH and Serbia don’t have their embassies.
Minister of foreign affairs of Serbia Mrkić said that BiH is the closest neighbour to Serbia.
” We have plenty of reasons to develop our friendship, because we have a common past, and similar present, we aspire towards a common future. We need to make projects that will enhance our friendship, and Serbia is fully ready to have the best possible relations with Sarajevo and BiH”, said Mrkić
He said that both countries should ”train” for their EU membership, because those are the priorities of both countries.
After the meeting with Lagumdžija, Mrkić will meet member of the Presidency of BiH Bakir Izetbegović and later with the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of BiH Vjekoslav Bevanda.
