BELGRADE, August 10. /TASS/. President of Republika Srpska (one of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s (BiH) entities) Milorad Dodik would like to have a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin before the end of 2023.
"I will hold meetings with at least two world leaders and this is, of course, not [US President Joe] Biden. Yet they hold a dominant position globally. I will definitely have a meeting with President Putin before the year’s end. We are also working on setting up a meeting with the Chinese leader and I am planning on visiting China in October-November to meet with him there," Dodik said in an interview with the RTRS TV channel.
"Before the end of this month, I will meet once again with [Serbian President Aleksandar] Vucic, [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orban, [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan, and [Azerbaijani President Ilham] Aliyev," Dodik said. "Republika Srpska has never had more friends [than now], who are ready to understand its position and help it. There is nothing new in Germany and some other countries having a negative attitude toward us, the Serbs," he added.
In May, Dodik visited Moscow where he held a meeting with Putin and participated in the 11th International Meeting of High Representatives in Charge of Security Issues. This year, the meeting’s participants, including Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Director Sergey Naryshkin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Dodik, in addition to international security and the shaping of a multipolar world, discussed the issues of NATO’s expansion, the West’s fight against Russia by means of Ukraine, as well as the US and Europe’s pressure on the countries of the Global South and the Middle East.