MOSCOW, April 10. /TASS/. Republika Srpska will not join NATO, President Milorad Dodik told TASS in an interview.
"We are against moving toward NATO membership," he said. "Based on where we are, we must maintain some contacts and cooperation with NATO, but we have clearly told them that we do not want to be members of this organization."
Dodik pointed out that Serbs had not forgotten how NATO bombed them twice in the past. "The first time when we were in Republika Srpska and the second time the Serbs in Serbia, causing us serious material and human losses. And our most painful memory is that they dumped depleted uranium on us, which led to long-term consequences and an increase in cancer rates, even among newborn children," he explained.
He said that this was not just a military intervention by NATO, but a war crime. "And that's why when we hear about NATO, we feel uncomfortable, we don't want to think about them or hear about them," he said.
"I believe that the President [of the United States Donald] Trump will be able to curb them. There are Bosnian Muslims in Sarajevo, motivated by political Islam, who would like to get the whole world to fight the Serbs, but this is no longer true. I believe that this is no longer the case, and there are no such twisted minds even in NATO," Dodik added.
About NATO's ‘alliance’ with the Bosnians
According to him, NATO has done all it can to disarm Republika Srpska, where all weapons plants have been destroyed. However, Dodik said, Bosnian Muslims, "and especially those motivated by political Islam, have been left 11 factories. And often, when a terrorist act occurs somewhere in Europe, weapons and ammunition are found that originate from this part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. They have connections with radical Muslims from all over the world, and they become the logistics center for their further actions in Europe," said the leader of Republika Srpska.
"I think it's getting harder to explain to them [NATO] and the European Union that all those they consider allies have never been such. They just supported NATO when they dropped bombs on us, the Serbs. But I believe that this will never happen again," Dodik concluded.