MINSK, May 24. /TASS/. President of the Republika Srpska (an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina) Milorad Dodik will come to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in June, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov told TASS.
"Yes, [Dodik] will attend [SPIEF]," the aide said.
SPIEF 2024 will be held on June 5-8.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will take part in the forum as always. TASS will be the event's information partner.
Earlier, Ushakov said that Bolivian President Luis Arce would be the guest of honor at SPIEF. He will take part in the plenary discussion of the forum together with the head of state. The aide did not rule out that other foreign leaders may also come to participate in SPIEF.
On May 23, Dodik announced that Republika Srpska authorities would draft a bill on the peaceful separation of Bosnia and Herzegovina within 30 days. He said it would envision preserving the current economic model, adapting it as needed over the next several years. He related this initiative to Sarajevo's proposed UN General Assembly draft resolution on the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, which Dodik has described as illegal. He also said that the world community simply ignores the killing of some 3,500 ethnic Serbs by Islamist formations in the Srebrenica area during the armed conflict in the early 1990s.