Isak: BiH, Kosovo, Montenegro and Croatia should create a common front against Serbia

The Minister of Internal Affairs of the Federation of BiH, Ramo Isak, stated that the glorification of Hague convict Ratko Mladić in Serbia and Republika Srpska is a direct security threat to BiH and the Balkans, assessing that BiH, Kosovo, Montenegro and Croatia should create a common front against Serbia.

Isak said that for him, "the zero foreign policy and security priority is stronger connections between BiH and Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro, Croatia and all other countries in the region that have an interest in the Balkans never again becoming a space where territorial claims, ethnic nationalism and the rehabilitation of war policies turn into violence."

He added that he was talking "about creating a front against the deranged Chetnik ideology in Serbia", noting that "its political manifestations represent a direct threat to the constitutional and legal order, security, democracy and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Croatia and Albania".

"In Serbia and the Bosnian entity Republika Srpska, the glorification of war criminal Ratko Mladić has reached such a level of political, social and institutional legitimacy that it can no longer be described as marginal nationalism," Isak said, according to Sarajevo media.

Such phenomena, he added, must not be treated only as a security challenge, but as a direct threat to the long-term peace, political stability and security of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the entire Western Balkans.

"That is why political statements from the European Union (EU) are no longer enough. The EU has sent a clear message today that glorifying war criminals, denying genocide and historical revisionism have no place in the European Union or in candidate countries. That message must also have concrete consequences," Isak said.

He called on the EU Council to amend the existing regime of restrictive measures by introducing as a special and explicit basis for sanctioning the public glorification of persons finally convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, as well as the denial of finally established genocide and other international crimes, as well as their revisionist attempts to justify them.

He added that BiH is a candidate country for EU membership, and that on its territory, especially in the RS, the highest political officials have been openly glorifying finally convicted war criminals for years.

"If the EU says that such behavior has no place in candidate countries, then that message also applies to BiH. The difference is that Serbia must confront the ideological continuity of nationalism and vampiric Chetnik ideology, which its political leadership stubbornly refuses to abandon, while BiH must respond to the institutional inability of BiH's judicial institutions to apply their own laws on their own territory," Isak said.