MOSCOW, September 29 /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told his German counterpart Frank Walter Steinmeier by telephone on Thursday that there was no need to fuel tensions over the Serbian Republic in Bosnia-Herzegovina and urged him to focus on encouraging the Bosnian sides to start a constructive dialogue, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement published at the Russian Foreign Ministry website after the ministers’ telephone conversation on Thursday.
"The ministers discussed the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina after a referendum on the entity’s main holiday - the Serbian Republic Day - which was held in the Serbian Republic on September 25 this year. The Russian side emphasized that the plebiscite was not posing any threats to the territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina and was not violating the principles of the 1995 General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina," the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed.
"Lavrov spoke against attempts to inflame tensions over the Serbian Republic and called for encouraging the Bosnian sides to start a constructive dialogue on all urgent issues concerning the stabilization process in the country," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
The Serbian Republic (Republika Srpska) is a constitutional state entity in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1992, Bosnian Muslims decided to seek Bosnia and Herzegovina’s separation from the former Yugoslavia. In response, the Bosnian Serbs proclaimed the independence of the Serbian Republic, which remained self-proclaimed and unrecognized until November 1995 when the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which put an end to the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia, was concluded and a common state of Bosnia and Herzegovina was created. It consists of two constitutional state entities - the Serbian Republic and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.