Proposed secession of Republika Srpska

Christian Schmidt of Germany will take over from Valentin Inzko as head of the international community's Office of High representative, OHR, to Bosnia from August 1, the Steering Board of the Peace Implementation Council, PIC, which groups countries overseeing the peace in Bosnia, confimed on Thursday.

Lawmakers in the Republika Srpska National Assembly voted on Tuesday evening to reject a demand from High Representative Valentin Inzko, the international overseer of Bosnia's peace agreement, for people convicted of war crimes to be stripped of decorations awarded to them by the National Assembly in 2016.

Behind a Bosnian Serb call for talks on the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina lurks the latest threat of secession by the country's Republika Srpska entity, but analysts question whether Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik is playing to anyone but his domestic voters.

"The paper has been written, it's rather fashionable, I'm not kidding, we've already made some of our 'non-paper' document, so one day, when we decide, we will also send it to everyone", Dodik told reporters in Banja Luka.

Taking advantage of the tensions caused by a controversial document predicting the dissolution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnian Serb political leaders said on Tuesday that they want to formally discuss the future of the country with Croat and Bosniak politicians.

Bosnia and Herzegovina and Turkey signed the agreement to build the Bosnian stretch of a highway to link Sarajevo and Belgrade on Tuesday in Ankara in the presence of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the three members of the tripartite Bosnian presidency.

The question is, why is Germany doing this and why now?

A three-centuries-old gilded icon, presented to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov by Milorad Dodik, Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, will be returned amid a row over its origins, the Russian Foreign Ministry told the Russian media.

They will give recommendations to the future administration, which will be led by Joe Biden, on what attitude should be taken towards our region, and Dnevni Avaz states that it has exclusive information on what exactly will be requested.

The US State Department has blacklisted Amir Zukic, a disgraced former high-ranking official of the main Bosniak Party of Democratic Action, SDA, for being involved in corruption.