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Russia would not accept a one-sided approach to the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Churkin criticized a report by Valentin Inzko, the U.N. High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina

UNITED NATIONS, May 15 /ITAR-TASS/. Russian Ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, said at the United Nations Security Council debates on Thursday that Russia would not accept a one-sided and biased approach to the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He criticized a report by Valentin Inzko, the U.N. High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, for being biased against Bosnian Serbs and an attempt to blame them for the recent political unrest in the country.

“The report understates the negative impact of Muslim-Croatian contradictions within the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in which the rights of Bosnian Croats guaranteed by the Dayton agreements continue to be infringed on. We do not accept this one-sided and biased approach,” the Russian diplomat stressed.

Churkin said that Inzko was ignoring the situation in the Muslim-populated areas of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina which had seen huge riots last February. The protesters stormed administrative buildings and set them on fire. Churkin reproached Inzko for trying to shift the blame to the Serb Republic in Bosnia (Republika Srpksa) and Bosnian Croats.

The Russian diplomat admitted that the general election scheduled for October 12 was having its impact on the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina but said that it should not be overdramatized.

Churkin said that the potential of the mechanism of the U.N. High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina “had been exhausted” and called for the earliest start of “an inclusive internal dialogue for settling problems that face the country.”

”The task of the U.N. High Representative is to encourage this dialogue probing for common solutions rather than focusing on the European and Trans-Atlantic agenda,” Churkin said.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, consisting of the Serb Republic and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is a recognized EU candidate.

The European Union is building its plans of pacifying the Balkan region, which was torn by bloody wars in the 1990s, on prospects of an EU membership for Bosnia and Herzegovina.