DODIK'S VISIT TO USA IMPORTANT FOR SECURING LONG-TERM SUPPORT FOR REPUBLIKA SRPSKA

BELGRADE, November 6 /SRNA/ – President Milorad Dodik's visit to the United States and his attendance at a MAGA movement gathering are important for securing lasting support for Republika Srpska beyond President Donald Trump's term in office, political analyst Dragomir Anđelković said.

Anđelković believes Dodik's visit represents a kind of bridge to the future, aimed at ensuring that Republika Srpska receives consistent support from sovereignist forces in the USA. Commenting on Dodik's meetings with various senators, congressmen and officials at the MAGA movement gathering at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Anđelković told SRNA that the visit came at the right time, when spears are gettong broken thereand when American sovereignists need to be shown that Republika Srpska is their friend. "Cooperation with them will pay off in the long run because they will remain an important factor both now and after Trump," he said. Anđelković recalled that Trump's MAGA movement has a distinctly sovereignist ideology, advocating a policy of the United States focusing on its own interests and cooperating with sovereignist forces, while rejecting interventionism. He explained that the MAGA movement is ideologically closest to Republika Srpska and its leadership because it advocates the same values: that everyone should take care of their own affairs, cooperate with others and refrain from interfering in other people's affairs. According to him, the fact that Trump and his Republican Party performed relatively poorly in the elections does not mean that the MAGA movement has weakened. "In the future, this movement will become much stronger, and the Republican Party, in which it will have greater influence, will certainly become an even better partner for Republika Srpska," Anđelković stressed. He said that the election results could only strengthen the MAGA movement and, consequently, the partnership between Republika Srpska and sovereignist forces in the United States. Commenting on Dodik's meeting in Palm Beach with Matt Schlapp, chairman of the Conservative Political Action Conference /CPAC/, Anđelković said that a kind of Republika Srpska lobbying network was gradually taking shape. He noted that the organisation brings together highly influential people in the United States from politics and various areas of society, as well as the media and business sectors. "We know very well that, regardless of who is in power in the United States, there is always cooperation with Israel in one form or another. That is why it is important for us that Republika Srpska, which cannot become a new Israel or have the same level of influence, secures even five or one per cent of the influence Israel enjoys in American centres of power," Anđelković said. He concluded that this would make a significant contribution to protecting Serbian national interests.