FIRST TELL CITIZENS THERE WILL BE NO WAR, SEEK SOLUTIONS THROUGH DIALOGUE

SARAJEVO, FEBRUARY 12 /SRNA/ – Serb deputy to the House of Peoples of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly, Radovan Kovačević, states there will be no war in BiH, noting that citizens should first be told that peace and stability are certain and emphasizing that political solutions must be sought through dialogue, not through “nonsense about brigades”.

Kovačević says he respects everyone, but that narratives about brigades are nonsense. “I respect everyone, but this nonsense about brigades - people, don’t do that. Let’s first tell all the people in BiH that there will be no war. Let’s start with that. We can seek various political solutions, but there will be no war,” Kovačević stressed. He has added that Srpska is seeking a solution and that “some nonsense about brigades” will neither frighten nor stop it from pursuing what belongs to it. “Stop with that foolishness, stop with that nonsense - you won’t be any bigger or more dangerous. You will remain what you are. If you behave that way, you will remain as miserable as you are,” Kovačević said. Speaking about Republika Srpska’s diplomatic offensive, Kovačević stated that Srpska had held talks at very important addresses with very important people on issues significant for it. “What is important for us is that we have moved from a position where we were sanctioned, stigmatized, and lied about, to a position where we are sitting at the table, no longer on the table. We have become interlocutors; we are no longer the subject of discussion, but participants in solving problems and someone people see as a credible partner,” Kovačević told Newsmax Balkan. He criticized the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Council of Ministers, Elmedin Konaković, saying that he belittles meetings and visits that are an integral part of diplomatic relations. “He says at a press conference that he has two more ‘Zoom’ conversations where people will inform him about what /President of Republika Srpska Milorad/ Dodik talked about. A ‘Zoom’ minister is commenting on talks that are part of diplomatic relations. These are talks, serious interstate ones held on the sidelines of significant diplomatic events,” Kovačević said. According to him, serious official bilateral meetings were also commented on, including those between the presidents of Israel and Republika Srpska, as well as between the prime minister of Israel and the president of Republika Srpska. Kovačević says that, as far as he knows, the job of the foreign minister is not to find out abroad what the president of Republika Srpska discussed, but to represent Srpska and its president as the choice of the people. He added that members of the European Parliament had visited him and conveyed that Konaković had spent an hour at a meeting speaking against Republika Srpska. “People, for example from Germany, say they cannot imagine any foreign parliamentarian coming to a German minister and speaking for an hour against Bavaria, because then he would not be a German minister,” Kovačević said. He assessed that this constitutes abuse, stressing that Republika Srpska representatives have not abused BiH institutions nor spoken against anyone, but have, within their mandate, presented their positions and spoken about injustice done to Srpska. “We encountered serious understanding from our interlocutors. We have presented more than enough details from the meetings in Israel and the U.S.A. We do not have to reveal every detail now. We did not speak about all the meetings we had either,” Kovačević concluded.