President of the Montenegrin part of the Mixed Commission for Monitoring the Implementation of the Agreement between the Government of Montenegro and the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina on Border Crossings for International and Border Traffic Milan Paunović he sent to his colleagues from BiH, namely the Ministry of Security and Ermin Pest, to the Chairman of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian part of the Mixed Commission, the initiative for the opening of the border crossing in the town of Ravno.
This is the epilogue of the protest organized on Monday by residents of the municipalities of Plužine and Gacko, who blocked the road, demanding that residents of those municipalities be allowed to cross the border at the Ravno crossing with personal documents, as well as that the crossing be given the status of the Krstac crossing and be open to tourists during the tourist season.
"At several previous meetings of the Mixed Commission, we discussed, among other things, the initiative to open a border crossing on the Plužine-Gacko road, or Gacko-Plužine, in the town of Ravno, and on that occasion we agreed that for now, in addition to eight open border crossings on the 250-kilometer state border between the two countries, there are no conditions for opening a border crossing on this road. Also, that there is no border infrastructure prescribed by national and European standards for opening this border crossing," it is written in Paunović's letter, which "Vijesti" had access to.
He recalled that Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina have opened eight border crossings across their common state border, and that they have "respected the requests of the local population of these border municipalities and enabled them to cross the state border outside the border crossing in the border traffic regime with a border pass at 18 open crossing points."
"Despite this, the citizens of the Municipality of Plužine are demanding the opening of the border crossing, expressing their dissatisfaction with the blockade of the international road route Plužine - Foča - Sarajevo, and therefore the border crossing Šćepan Polje - Hum, and the citizens of Gacko by gathering at the Ravno crossing point. I ask you to once again consider the initiative to open this border crossing, while again obtaining the opinion of the Border Police and Customs Administration of Montenegro and the Border Police and Indirect Taxation Administration of Bosnia and Herzegovina... Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina have done everything, from 2010 to the present, to improve the movement of citizens and the trade of goods and facilitate international traffic across the common state border by opening eight border crossings and 18 crossing points, and in this sense we appeal to citizens not to hinder international traffic between the two countries, because the border crossing is opened by a bilateral agreement between the two countries," concluded Paunović.
In recent weeks, as residents of Pluzine and Gacko have pointed out, the border police of Bosnia and Herzegovina have stepped up control in the area and some locals, as well as tourists, have already been fined. The road via Ravno is “the shortest route from Dubrovnik, Trebinje, Mostar to the Durmitor region”, and now they are forced to take a three-times longer route from Pluzine and Gacko instead of taking the approximately 35-kilometer route. There are passes for residents of border areas to facilitate the crossing, but, as they claim, only a small number of them can obtain them because there is a condition that they have land or real estate in one country and live or work in another.
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