Russia Sparks Row over International Role in Bosnia

Senad Sepic, one of the MPs from the leading Bosniak Party of Democratic Action, SDA, reacted angrily to the proposal by the Russian ambassador, Petr Ivantsov, who suggested that the international supervision of the country should end.

"We are convinced that the time has come to end the experiment of the outside protectorate over independent Bosnia and Herzegovina," Ivantsov said in a column in Banja Luka-based newspaper Nezavisne Novine on Friday.

Ivantsov argued that supervision by Bosnia's international governance body, the Office of the High Representative, OHR, creates dependency and prevents reconciliation and progress.

"The time has come that we finally allow people of Bosnia and Herzegovina to take full responsibility for the fate of their country into their own hands; responsibility for their present and future, without interference from the Office of the High Representative and foreign embassies," he wrote.

But Sepic said that if Moscow wants to pull out of the Peace Implementation Council, the international ad-hoc body established 20 years ago to oversee the work of the OHR, it should do so itself and leave the US and other Western countries in charge.

"And why should Russia not unilaterally leave the Peace Implementation Council? And leave it to the management of democratic, modern and developed countries towards which all citizens of this country (Serbs and Croats as well as Bosniaks) are oriented," Sepic asked in a blog post that was published on social networks and local web portals on Sunday.

Sepic also said that the Russian ambassador's argument followed the line taken by the president of Bosnia's Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, who recently launched an initiative to hold a...