Bosnia Serb PM Warns Muslims To Not Play With Fire

http://www.javno.com/en/world/clanak.php?id=50923 ^

[kronos77]

Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik on Thursday warned Muslim leaders to abandon anti-Serb rhetoric if they planned to live with Serbs in the same country.

The warning came only two weeks after U.S.-hosted talks in Washington failed to find a compromise agreement between Dodik and his Muslim rival, Haris Silajdzic, on key reforms that the European Union demands as a prerequisite for closer ties.

"We say to Mr. Silajdzic and his supporters not to play with fire," Dodik said in a statement, responding to a renewed challenge by Silajdzic to the legitimacy of the Serb Republic and its right to exist as an autonomous entity.

"If they continue with grave offences, humiliation and underestimation of the rights and interests of the Serb people in Bosnia, every possibility of co-existence and common future will be destroyed," Dodik said in his toughly worded statement.

U.S. officials expressed concern at the volatile climate in Bosnia, where stability could be threatened by an angry Serb reaction to the imminent U.N. decision on the fate of Serbia's breakaway Kosovo province. "We are here to help but Bosnian citizens themselves must say that the behaviour of your politicians who use inflammatory rhetoric is unacceptable," U.S. State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary Rosemary Di Carlo told reporters.

Dodik was reacting to an interview with the BBC this week, in which Silajdzic said the Bosnian Serb Republic was built on genocide in the 1992-95 war and should not be recognised by the international community.

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[Melchior]

Silajdzic involvement with Iran goes back to the Summer of 1992 when he was serving as Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Bosnia. After talks with Iran President Rafsanjani, the Iranian leader declared his nation’s support for “any form of assistance” to the Islamist government. He then was one of three important principles involved in the illegal arms trade that flourished despite UN prohibitions. That close relationship with Iran remains to this day.