Bosnia will likely “peacefully separate” in its future, Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik said Tuesday, as the Balkan country marked the 28th anniversary of the peace deal that ended its bloody civil war.
Dodik — a 64-year-old Kremlin ally — has held enormous sway over Bosnia’s Serb entity Republika Srpska for years and has frequently stoked ethnic tensions with his secessionist threats.
“Unfortunately, Bosnia’s epilogue will be that it peacefully separate,” said Dodik during a press conference in the Bosnian Serb capital of Banja Luka.
“It’s clear that we are on that path and that the train has left the station and there is no turning back,” he added.
Dodik has long been a fierce opponent of certain institutions and reforms stemming from the Dayton Agreement — the US-brokered peace accord that ended Bosnia’s civil war in 1995 during which some 100,000 people were killed.
In accordance with the deal, Bosnia has remained split into two semi-autonomous blocs — the Serbs’ Republika Srpska (RS) and the Muslim-Croat Federation — which are linked by weak central institutions.
Dodik on Tuesday trashed international pressure directed at his leadership,…
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