ANĐELKOVIĆ: GOOD RELATIONS WITH WASHINGTON AND MOSCOW - CHANCE TO REVITALIZE DAYTON AGREEMENT

BELGRADE, NOVEMBER 13 /SRNA/ - Historian Dragomir Anđelković told SRNA that by seeking common ground with the administration of US President Donald Trump, while simultaneously maintaining good relations with Russia, Republika Srpska has an opportunity to revitalize the Dayton Peace Agreement, or at least to prevent further blows to the entity and attempts at unconstitutional centralization of BiH.

On the occasion of the upcoming thirtieth anniversary of the Dayton Agreement, Anđelković said that Republika Srpska and the Trump administration share the same opponents: non-national Euro-Atlanticists from the United States to Europe. He said that Trump must pursue a policy of continuity and cannot drastically deviate from previous US policies, although he no longer insists on many issues as strongly as the Euro-Atlanticists do. According to him, this gap between Trump and much of the American and European elite gives the Serb people hope that they can, in some way, resolve their national question, that is, protect Republika Srpska. "Trump has no interest in dismantling Republika Srpska, and it is very wise that Banja Luka has acted in a way to seek common ground with the Trump administration while simultaneously maintaining good relations with Moscow, because there lies an opportunity to revitalize the Dayton Agreement or at least prevent further attacks on Republika Srpska and attempts at unconstitutional centralization," Anđelković pointed out. He added that Sarajevo and its Euro-Atlantic patrons apparently structured the Dayton Agreement 30 years ago as an attempt to deceive the Serbs. "They could not defeat the Serbs militarily, they could not impose a centralized, unitary BiH under Sarajevo's hegemony, and so what they could not achieve by force, they tried to accomplish through deception – by imposing a peace agreement acceptable to us, and then over time modifying it until it aligned with Sarajevo's wartime objectives," Anđelković said. According to him, Republika Srpska has fortunately proven to be a tough nut, bravely and consistently defending the principles of the Dayton Agreement. "In the struggle between those who seek to dismantle the Dayton Agreement and Republika Srpska, which defends it, a large part of the Agreement has still been preserved, despite some damage we have suffered and the fact that the original Dayton Agreement no longer fully functions. What matters is that it still exists on paper, and that is the framework we must continue to defend and insist upon in the future," Anđelković said. The General Framework Agreement for Peace in BiH, better known as the Dayton Peace Agreement, was negotiated on November 21, 1995, at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, and officially signed on December 14, 1995, in Paris. The Dayton Agreement defined BiH as a state composed of two entities and three constituent peoples, and its Annex IV established the constitutional structure of BiH and defined competencies at the BiH and entity levels. In the years following the signing of the Dayton Agreement, under pressure from the OHR /Office of the High Representative/ and the Constitutional Court of BiH, Republika Srpska was stripped of more than 80 competencies, which were transferred to the BiH level.