Dodik Quits High-Level Meeting Over Lack of Serb Flag

Milorad Dodik cancelled the talks on Tuesday after his demand that the flag of Bosnia's Serb-dominated Republika Srpska be placed next to the Bosnian state flag in the meeting room was refused by the other two members of the country's tripartite presidency.

Dodik then demanded that the flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina be removed if there was to be no Republika Srpska flag in the room.

He said that he does not want to sit in the Bosnian presidency building unless the flag of Republika Srpska is displayed in the hall or the flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina is removed.

"There are no symbols of the Serb people in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina [Bosnia's other entity] and I do not want to be discriminated against at the Presidency. I want to work if the flag of Bosnia is removed," Dodik told Bosnian media.

"I will propose amendments to the rules of procedure to introduce the Republika Srpska flag. If the Bosniaks are ready to amend the Flag Act, we will have a solution," he added.

But the Bosniak member of the state presidency, Sefik Dzaferovic, said he would never agree.

"I could not accept that. This is a state institution, and according to the Flag Act, this can only be the flag of Bosnia," Dzaferovic told a press conference.

Dodik said however that that he will continue to insist that the Republika Srpska flag is on display at working meetings.

He said he would cancel a session of the presidency scheduled for Wednesday if he cannot put the Republika Srpska flag next to the flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

This was not the first meeting that Dodik has left over the flag issue.

On December 5, he walked out of a presidency meeting with a delegation of the Peace Implementation Council Steering Board...