MOSCOW, May 16. /TASS/. Attempts to dragging Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) into NATO are absolutely unacceptable as they create risks in the region, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said on Monday.

"We think that attempt to artificially adjust issues of state-building to any tasks, say, the accession and dragging Bosnia and Herzegovina into the European Union or NATO, which we are categorically against, since we believe that it will only create additional risks, new division lines rather than unite the region, we believe that these attempts are artificial and absolutely unacceptable," he said in an interview with Republika Srpska’s RTRS television channel.

He stressed that the European Union is seeking to sever centuries-ling ties between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Russia, trying to compel BiH to join the anti-Russian course "by means of dragging it into NATO activities" and including it into "an instrument of promoting American interests in the region and in the European continent in general."

"In recent years, Washington has been sparing no effort to use the Russian threat, which doesn’t exist, as a pretext to consolidate the Europeans on the anti-Russian grounds," he said. "Naturally, if we think strategically, such a scenario is not in the interests of the peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina, let alone the Republika Srpska.".