Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Republika Srpska Interior Ministry said on Monday that it has shelved amendments that envisaged the establishment of the new reservist police force, after coming under criticism from Bosniak war victims' groups and from Bosnia and Herzegovina's Western allies.

Viktor Orban told a news conference on Tuesday after talks in Budapest with the chairman of the Bosnian presidency, Milorad Dodik, that he wants to boost ties with the Serb-dominated entity Republika Srpska, where Dodik has been the most powerful politician for many years.

The talks covered relations between Hungary and Bosnia and Herzegovina and with Republika Srpska, Orban said.

The government of Republika Srpska, the Serbian-dominated entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, has authorised the Ministry of Education and Culture in the entity on Friday to sign an agreement on the provision of Chinese classes with the Confucius Institute in Beijing

Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, who now chairs Bosnia's tripartite state presidency, has refused to meet Christiane Hohmann, the outgoing German ambassador to Bosnia, claiming that she has worked against the interests of the Bosnian Serb community, SRNA news agency reported on Wednesday.

Tomislav Kovac, who was deputy interior minister in the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity in July 1995, when the Kravica massacre happened, told Belgrade Higher Court on Tuesday that Ljubisa Beara, who at the time was the security chief of the Main Headquarters of the Bosnian Serb Army, was to blame for the killings.

There were 400 reservist police officers in Visegrad before the war, and the force was multi-ethnic. However, as the conflict began, 183 more officers were recruited by the Serb-run police station in the town.

A number of them had criminal records, said Huso Kurspahic, the former commander of the police station in Medjedja, near Visegrad.

Ahmet Sejdic told the Bosnian state court in Sarajevo on Friday that he was innocent, as his defence called for his acquittal on all charges in the indictment accusing him of the inhumane treatment of Serb civilians and prisoners of war in the period between July 1992 and February 1993.

The Bosnian prosecution on Thursday called on the state court in Sarajevo to increase the six-year sentence handed down last year to former Bosnian Serb soldier Zdravko Lubarda for crimes against humanity against Bosniaks.

Bosnian state presidency member Zeljko Komsic on Tuesday strongly condemned the recent destruction of a memorial to Croats killed during the war in 1992 in the village of Brisevo in the Prijedor area, which lies in the country's Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity.

Serbian Justice Minister Nela Kuburovic said on Friday that it was "hypocritical" of the UN court to say that witnesses did not dare to appear in court in Belgrade and that therefore the two Serbian Radical Party officials had to be tried in The Hague.

"Serbia has the right to appeal. It will refute the decision," Kuburovic said, Serbia's Happy TV station reported.