Balkans | Escobar: Dodik is Putin’s greatest soldier

US representative to the Western Balkans Gabriel Escobar described Bosnian Serb leader Dodik as “Putin’s greatest soldier”.

Escobar announced that if Dodek’s speech turns out to be nothing more than a political maneuver, new sanctions will be applied.

Escobar said: “Bosnia and Herzegovina will not be divided. “The United States will not ignore its commitments to the Dayton Peace Agreement and Bosnia and Herzegovina,” he said.

And Escobar believed that the head of the entity in the Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, had surpassed even the Belarusian leader Lukashenko in his praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and said that the Republika Srpska would face US sanctions if it held a referendum on the status of the entity.

This is not the time to take drastic steps

In his assessment of the speculation that the Office of the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina (OHR) would reject Dodik, Escobar said that he could not assess the actions of the Office of the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina (OHR) but believed that we were not at a stage requiring violent action yet. “If this really happens, we will react strongly,” Escobar said. Bosnia and Herzegovina will not be divided. The United States will not ignore the Dayton Peace Agreement and its commitments to Bosnia and Herzegovina. We hope Dodik doesn’t go that far and that this is just political rhetoric. But if this is not the case, we are ready to resort to political tools such as sanctions and the Bonn authorities.

Referring to the request of some politicians in Bosnia and Herzegovina to deploy troops in the Brcko region, Escobar said that the EU mission provides security and continues to protect the territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina from internal and external attacks.

source: Balkan News