Statement by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at a UNSC Briefing on Bosnia and Herzegovina
Point of order:
Mr. President,
We would like to state our principled disagreement with the presence at this meeting of Mr. Christian Schmidt in his capacity as the so-called “High Representative”. The UN Security never endorsed him in that position.
We’d like to remind you that the issue of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH) has been on the Council's agenda under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. We have almost 25 years of practice of endorsing High Representatives; therefore, until there is a mandate from the Council, the position of High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina remains vacant.
In light of the above, I would like to emphasize that Mr. Schmidt has no right to speak on behalf of the international community nor to submit any documents to the Security Council.
However, the Security Council does have a practice according to which we can listen to briefers in their personal capacity. This is how we are going to construe Mr. Schmidt’s presence here today. However, given that he has definitively discredited himself through his attempts to usurp power in the BIH and is doing everything he can to destabilize the already tense situation in that country – which is something I’m going to discuss in detail in my main statement – I do not intend to waste any time listening to his biased remarks.
Main statement:
Mr. President,
We congratulate you on assuming the presidency of the Security Council in May, and we would like to thank France for its presidency in April. We welcome the participation in this meeting of the Chairperson of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Željka Cvijanović.
This is the third time in less than six months that the Security Council has discussed the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which attests to the fact that what is happening in the country is more than serious in terms of threats to peace and security. It would be no exaggeration to say that the country is experiencing the most serious internal political crisis in the post-conflict period, which was prompted by the desire of a host of external actors and their backers inside the BiH to revise the Dayton architecture and the whole system of the distribution of powers in the country. What we are seeing there are persistent attempts to recast the BIH from a decentralized into a unitary State by reducing the broad powers and rights of the three constituent peoples and the two entities.
We have warned on numerous occasions that any revision of the General Framework Agreement for Peace is fraught with a great deal of danger. In the press statement issued on March 29, the Security Council sent a clear message to all parties that the Dayton Agreement remains the cornerstone of the settlement process, and that all differences must be resolved through dialogue between Bosnians themselves, between the entities and the constituent peoples. Regrettably, this unambiguous message was ignored by those very people who seem to be establishing conditions for the implementation thereof.
Once again, we are witnessing how the self-styled “high representative” – with the outright connivance (if not support) by his Western sponsors – continues to unscrupulously interfere in the purely internal affairs of the independent Bosnia-Herzegovinian State. This time, under trumped-up pretexts that have nothing to do with the Dayton issue, he is trying to “cut off the oxygen” to political parties of Republika Srpska, including those represented in the BIH Parliamentary Assembly. This is nothing but continued attempts to eject from the BIH political scene those figures and forces who are the most popular among the Serbs; this began with the absurd prosecutions of the President of Republika Srpska, the head of the Government and the Speaker of the Parliament? Let us recall that all of the people I mentioned are democratically elected representatives, whose legitimacy and high popularity were once again reasserted by the results of the municipal elections held in October, 2024.
Convictions are being rendered against the top leadership of the Serbian entities with arrest warrants issued for they being suspected of “undermining the constitutional order”, which only served to significantly heighten the tensions in the country and in the region as a whole. And instead of attempts to dial down the tensions (which are already at fever pitch), we are seeing the opposite effect. I am referring to the incident of April 23 in East Sarajevo, when an operative group of inspectors from the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) attempted to serve a subpoena to the President of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik. This cannot be called anything other than a provocation. All the more so because one of the inspectors is suspected of war crimes against Serbs, and the other has ties to the secret service of Bosnian Muslims which was active during the armed conflict of 1992-1995.
Mr. President,
We cannot but conclude that Mr. Schmidt has set himself the objective of completely strangling all things Serbian in the BIH. We are convinced that the Council should point out that such a policy is categorically unacceptable, especially given that it is being implemented on behalf of the West. Thus, the West becomes complicit in the lawlessness under way, which exhibits clear signs of colonialism as well as the hallmarks of xenophobia.
Obviously, it is precisely such destructive behavior that lies at the heart of the current crisis and provokes the aggravation of contradictions between the peoples of BIH preventing them from finding a mutually agreeable solution to pressing problems and inflating the conflict potential to dangerous proportions. Ultimately, such actions prompt the Security Council to meet time and again to discuss the issue of the BIH.
Attempts to pin all responsibility for what is happening in BiH on Banja Luka, which we are likely to hear in this Hall today, are – to put it mildly – ludicrous. That will not help the cause. The focus should be placed on the root causes of crisis phenomena rather than on their logical consequences. We are convinced that subjecting the Serbian people to ostracism yet again is not only unfair and contradictory given what is going on in reality, but can further exacerbate the entire situation, making it more difficult to find a way out of this dead-end.
And there is a way out, which is through freeing the peoples of BIH from the external custodianship, which is poisoning their very existence. The Council needs to face the truth and take a responsible decision to finally shut down the Office of the High Representative for the BIH, which lost any added value long ago and has become a driver of conflict. We suggest that the Council make a sober judgement of the situation in the BIH, which would be based not on pseudo-High Representative’s biased assessments and comments that are completely divorced from reality, but on its own conclusions based on a thorough analysis of the real situation.
What will be particularly helpful in this regard are the reports regularly submitted to the Council by the Government of the Republika Srpska, including a new document that we circulated as an official document of the UNSC yesterday, on May 5.
Mr. President,
A number of hotheads are proposing using the European Union Force in BIH (EUFOR/Operation ALTHEA) as part of interventions by the BIH law enforcement agencies; we deem such proposals totally reckless and unacceptable. Such interventions could result in a loss of control over the situation, which would entail unpredictable outcomes. We assume that the EUFOR leadership realizes the responsibility entrusted to it by the Security Council and will therefore act only within the confines of its mandate, which excludes any interference in the political affairs of a sovereign State. We see no need for a quantitative expansion of ALTHEA operational capabilities.
We stand convinced that the priorities of the international community in the BIH remain unchanged, which are bolstering the country's Dayton architecture in every way, advancing the principles of equality of the three constituent peoples and the two entities, sparing that European State from the Office of the High Representative (which has in fact turned into an instrument of oppression), as well as guaranteeing the right to independent development for the peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
For its part, Russia, as one of guarantors of the Dayton agreement, stands ready to engage constructively to ensure a genuine post-conflict settlement in the BIH.
Thank you.
