Dodik: Even Putin can't change our decision on referendum

Banja Luka, 21 September 2016 (MIA) - Milorad Dodik says ahead of his trip to Moscow that even Russian President Vladimir Putin could not change the decision to hold the RS Day referendum, B92 reports.

"I'm going there for economic issues, the cooperation of the RS with Russia, not because of the referendum," the president of the Serb Republic (RS), the Serb entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina, said on Wednesday, according to the Banja Luka daily Nezavisne.

"I will present the situation, as will Putin, we will hear one another out, but the referendum will not be postponed. You would be surprised if you knew how informed he in fact is about the situation here, and how many details he has," Dodik added.

He at the same time called on as many RS citizens as possible to turn out and vote in the referendum.

Commenting on the threats of war over the holding of the referendum coming f a former Muslim forces commander Dodik said that the Serb entity was "not taking any violent actions and is not preparing for war - but nobody should doubt it is ready to defend its territory."

Dodik also said that the statements of Sefer Halilovic were "wrong and unnecessary" while Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) "can do nothing that way and are very much mistaken if they think the RS is not prepared and capable of defending itself."

"If they did that, it would only speed up our path toward independence, and any attempt of that sort would definitely throw us out of Bosnia-Herzegovina, where we would not stay for another minute," he told reporters in Laktasi, near Banja Luka.

The RS leader also said that "the international community is acquainted with all these things," considering that "Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina chairman Bakir Izetbegovic two months ago informed Western ambassadors about the arming of the Bosniaks, and the assessment of the armaments in the RS, which means that Halilovic's statement was not at all coincidental but came as part of their general approach."

"We know that everything Halilovic told us is being said by top Bosniak politicians, and exists as their option, and a desire to in this way throw Serbs out of Bosnia-Herzegovina," said Dodik.

He added that the RS was "brought into Bosnia-Herzegovina" while the warmongering statements "serve only to prove their wishes to solve something here in that way."

"But that is not the way, and the RS does not prefer it. Its options are all political, without any war ones," Dodik said.

According to him, the Serb entity is "opening factories and building roads, not arming or preparing for war."

The referendum scheduled for September 25 concerns the entity's right to celebrate its day on January 9. This holiday was previously declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina. ik/19:41

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Thaci blasts Kurti's statement that war could come to Kosovo over Montenegro deal

Pristina, 22 September 2016 (MIA) - Kosovan President Hashim Thaci strongly condemned a statement from nationalist politician Albin Kurti, who said that Kosovo could face war in the coming years over a border demarcation treaty with neighboring Montenegro. MIA correspondent reports that Kurti, who leads the Self-Determination protest movement, made the statement for an Albanian newspaper, saying that the war could come in four to five years.

"This is a ridiculous, absurd, dangerous and unacceptable statement. The wars for Kosovo ended with our declaration of independence. After Kosovo was declared an independent and sovereign state, peace, stability and cooperation were reinforced in the Western Balkans. The freedom and independence of Kosovo put an end to the bloody wars of the past", President Thaci said. He is struggling to push the demarcation treaty through Parliament, facing opposition from rival former guerrilla commander turned politician Ramush Haradinaj, and from Kurti's party whose members have frequently set off tear gas in the Parliament to stop the voting.

After realizing that the Thaci led coalition does not have enough votes in Parliament to pass the treaty, the proposal was withdrawn. US and EU have urged Kosovan parties to approve the treaty as soon as possible, given that it might affect Montenegro's ongoing process of NATO membership.

Kurti ridiculed Thaci, calling him an ignoramus on his Facebook profile. Kurti claims that the treaty cedes 8.200 hectares of mountainous land to Montenegro.cc/08:39

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European court dismisses case against UN peacekeepers at Srebrenica

Paris, 22 September 2016 (MIA) - A case claiming three UN peacekeepers were criminally responsible in the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica was dismissed by the European Court of Human Rights on Thursday, dpa reports.

The court said that the actions of the peacekeepers from the Netherlands had been sufficiently investigated by authorities, and added that it was "impossible to conclude that the investigations had been ineffective or inadequate."

The case was brought by four relatives of massacre victims.

They alleged that the peacekeepers had played a role in their relatives‘ deaths by ordering them out of the UN compound at Dutchbat near Srebrenica when the area had been overrun by Bosnian Serbs.

Specifically, they said that one man, an electrician for the compound, had been mistakenly ordered to leave although he was included on the evacuation list. Another man stayed with his son, who was not permitted to leave.

All three were killed during the massacre committed by the Bosnian Serb army and Serbian paramilitaries that left between 7,000 and 8,000 Bosniak men dead.

The court backed rulings handed down by the public prosecutor and the Arnhem-Leeuwarden court of appeal, saying that the peacekeepers had no direct hand in the killing and were "unaware of the extent of the imminent massacre."

The massacre has been the subject of multiple legal proceedings, including at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.