Serbian PM's Bosnia Trip Will Highlight Economic Ties

Two weeks after Vucic took office as Prime Minister on April 27, he will pay a one-day visit to Sarajevo on Tuesday where he is due to meet Vjekoslav Bevanda, head of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and members of the country's Presidency.

Ahead of the trip, Vucic cited three reasons why he had chosen Bosnia for his first official visit abroad.

"Bosnia is Serbia's major trade partner, one-and-a-half million Serbs live there and Serbia wants regional stability," Vucic said.

Nebojsa Radmanovic, the Serbian member of Bosnia's three-man presidency,  said ahead of the visit that the two countries should intensify economic relations.

"Relations between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia are important, as Serbia is our third most important economic partner," Radmanovic said.

During the visit, Vucic is also due to visit the Serbian Orthodox cathedral in Sarajevo and speak to believers. He is also set to visit the Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque and the old centre of the city known as Bascarsija.

Analyst Dusan Janjic said Vucic was right to choose a regional country for his first foreign visit.  

"It says that Serbia will respect Dayton [the 1995 Peace Accord that ended the Bosnian war] and will cooperate with Sarajevo, and not, as has been the case until now, primarily with Banja Luka," Janjic told Radio Free Europe.

He was referring to Serbia's close ties to the mainly Serbian entity in Bosnia, Republika Srpska.

The former Democratic Party-led government in Serbia from 2008 to 2012 nurtured close ties with Republika Srpska whose president, Milorad Dodik, openly backed Democrat leader Boris Tadic in the presidential race in Serbia in May 2012.

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