Bosnia and Herzegovina

The HDZ and its sister party in Bosnia and Herzegovina have long advocated ethnically 'federalising' Bosnia and Herzegovina. This is in line with the HDZ's embrace of convicted war criminals who took part in a joint effort to carve up the country with Bosnian Serb separatists during the 1992-95 war.

Fighting in foreign wars was outlawed in Bosnia in 2014 in response to the flow of roughly 200 Bosniaks to fight with Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and of ethnic Serbs to the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists rebelled in 2014 following the ouster of Ukraine's then pro-Russian president.

Fahrudin Radoncic  Photo: EPA/FEHIM DEMIR

"We did not talk about any names, as that decision will be discussed in the following weeks," Adisa Omerbegovic Arapovic, the vice president of SBB, said in Sarajevo on Thursday, answering questions about whether Radoncic was promised the Bosnian Ministry of Security.

Bosnia and Herzegovina's success in the European accession process contributes to the stability and prosperity of the Western Balkans and the European Union as a whole, Prime Minister Viorica Dancila said on Thursday at a meeting she had with the Prime Minister of this country, Denis Zvizdic.

European integration and NATO membership are very important to the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina; they are two main foreign policy goals and an important pillar for stability in the Balkans for the economic development of the region, the Bosnian Prime Minister Denis Zvizdic said in Bucharest on Thursday. "From the very beginning, I want to thank Mrs Prime Minister (...) for support.

Sarajevo-based website klix.ba said it received confirmation of this.

Bosnian Serb strongman Milorad Dodik said his party would lend symbolic backing to the far-right Austrian Freedom Party in the European Parliament elections in May - although Bosnia and Herzegovina is not a member of the EU and its citizens are not voting in the May 23-26 polls.

A three-sided war pitching Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats against each other from 1992 to 1995 forced hundreds of thousands of people in Bosnia to leave their homes.

Elmedin Skrebo, vice-director of IFS EMMAUS in Bosnia and Herzegovina, has helped organise several aid convoys from Bosnia to the refugee camps in Turkey.

Bosnia's Brcko was long an urban centre for the Croatians of Slavonia. And so it is today, with the added benefit of VAT-free shopping.

The Aladza mosque in Foca in eastern Bosnia, a masterpiece of Ottoman architecture which is on the UNESCO World Heritage List, was reopened with a ceremonial event attended by thousands of people on Saturday after it was rebuilt following its destruction in 1992.