Silence and ignoring. This is how the attitude of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) could be described after the Turkish parliament refused to adopt the draft law that would recognize the genocide in Srebrenica last week.
The strongest Bosniak party and its leader Bakir Izetbegovic did not make any statements in the media, despite the fact that, for more than two decades, the Izetbegovic family has been nurturing family and partnership relations with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose party refused to vote for this law.
Also, there was no reaction from Milorad Dodik, the president of the ruling political party in the Republika Srpska (RS), the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), who has also been openly supporting the policies of the Turkish president for years.
The existing government, which at the entity level of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH), consisting of the Social Democratic Party of BiH, Narod i Pravda (People and Justice), Nasa stranka (Our Party), and the Croatian Democratic Union of BiH (HDZ), also refrained from commenting.
The only reaction identified on social networks is the statement of a member of the Presidency of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Damir Masic, who linked the non-vote in the Turkish parliament to Erdogan’s acquaintance with Dodik.
It should be recalled that on July 12th, the ruling Justice and Development Party of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (AKP) and its coalition partner the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) rejected the parliamentary proposal of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) to recognize the massacre in Srebrenica in 1995 as genocide.
About the relations between Izetbegovic and Erdogan
Izetbegovic and Erdogan have met more than 20 times in the past 15 years. They support each other on the political scene of BiH and Turkey, but also in private.
It is no secret that Erdogan also supported Alija Izetbegovic.
Erdogan’s relationship with Dodik
Apart from the SDA, the SNSD, whose president Milorad Dodik also has good relations with Erdogan, did not make any announcements. He also supported him in the elections in May this year.
At the last meeting in mid-June last year, Dodik, then in the capacity of a member of the BiH Presidency, had only words of praise for the Turkish president.
Turkish interests in BiH
Enver Kazaz, a professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo, pointed out that it was a “hypocritical move” by the ruling coalition gathered around Erdogan’s political organization not to adopt the law on the genocide in Srebrenica.
At the same time, Asim Mujkic, a professor at the Sarajevo Faculty of Political Sciences in Sarajevo, points out that real friendship between Turkey and BiH does not exist, but rather a “political friendship”.
“Bosniak political currency means subverting Turkish interests in the RS and Serbia, just as Serbian politics serves to subvert Russian interests,” he states, Slobodna Evropa reports.
E.Dz.
