The leader of the New Serbian Democracy Andrija Mandić confirmed to Television News that the representatives of the Serbs and Bosniaks in Montenegro are working on a document that would contribute to improving the position of the members of the Serb and Bosniak national communities in Montenegro.
Mandić told Television Vijesti that Serbian and Bosniak intellectuals are working on the document, but that politicians are also involved, and that they want to resist, as he said, the assimilation carried out by Milo Đukanović's regime over the two peoples.
Although, as he says, there are no unresolved issues between Serbs and Bosniaks in Montenegro, the leader of Nova believes that the Declaration, or the agreement between the Serb and Bosniak national communities, is an important document prepared by Serbian and Bosniak intellectuals. With it, as he explains, political representatives of both nations are invited to work together to improve the position of Serbs and Bosniaks in Montenegro.
"We have decided to find a common language with the Bosniaks, we think that we have a mutual interest for both of us to find a way of functioning between those two national communities, that is, their political representatives, in order to remove the artificially imposed hatred and division between our relations." said Mandic.
The goal of the Declaration, he says, is that Serbs and Bosniaks in Montenegro, especially in the north, no longer live next to each other, but to solve numerous life problems together. Although he does not specify whose, Mandić expects that the Declaration will receive the support of political representatives of the Bosniak community.
"Bosniaks were not in any danger from the Serbs in Montenegro. The regime tried to divide us and we are ready, as representatives of the Serbian people, to make a new page, to make a new beginning, to take a new path and to jointly oppose the violent assimilation carried out in Milo Đukanović's regime in Montenegro. I believe that we will be able to find a common language, at least we would like that, and I certainly expect that there will be partners from the Bosniak national community."
To succeed in this, Mandic admits, the cooperation they have with the leadership of Chechnya also helps them. There, recently, with Mandić and the leader of the Democratic People's Party, Milan Knežević, were representatives of the Bosniak Party, the president of the municipality of Plav, Orhan Šahmanović, and the secretary of that municipality, Mirza Medunjanin. Mandic clarifies his and Knežević's role in that story.
"Through our friends in Moscow, we helped Šahmanović and Medunjanin to establish contacts with the authorities of Chechnya, we are someone who helped Bosniaks to connect with Muslims from the Russian Federation. We both managed to see how in one Republic where he was a terrible war, thousands of people died on both the Christian and Muslim sides, today life functions normally. That was not the case in Montenegro, we had no conflicts, except that we had a dirty campaign that divided us, and I, on behalf of the New Serbian Democracy and the Serbian people, announced myself, and with this Declaration made by our intellectuals, I extend my hand to the people and political representatives of the Bosniak national community so that they can work together for the good of both peoples".
Mandic concludes that Bosniak representatives have established close cooperation with the leadership of Chechnya, from where, as he said, they will visit Montenegro.
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