Bosnia and Herzegovina

NATO has shrugged off a Kremlin warning to 'Bosnian friends' not to seek closer ties with the Atlantic alliance, saying each country has the sovereign right to choose its security arrangements.

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Russia will react if Bosnia takes steps towards joining NATO because Moscow would perceive this as a hostile act, the Russian embassy in Bosnia said in a statement on Thursday.

As talks intensify on appointing a new international overseer for Bosnia, the Bosnian Serb parliament has called for international supervision of the country to end – though experts doubt the demand will change anything.

The government offered payments to soldiers from the Dutch UN battalion that failed to prevent the massacres of Bosniaks from Srebrenica in 1995, in recognition of the “exceptional circumstances” in which they had to serve.

Human and minority rights, the rule of law and media freedom remain endangered in several Southeast and Central European countries in 2020, especially in the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, Human Rights Watch, HRW, said in its latest report published on Wednesday.

Valentin Inzko, the high representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina, has hailed the results of the local elections that saw the opposition win the Balkan country's two major cities earlier this month, dealing a blow to long-ruling nationalists.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell used the 25th anniversary of the peace agreement that ended the war in Bosnia to urge Bosnia's political leaders to overcome ethnic divisions and prepare their nation to join the EU.

A quarter of a century after the Dayton agreement, Bosnia and Herzegovina enjoys peace. But, in the last 15 years, the EU and US have failed to press for reform in the country, a neglect that has enabled ethno-political leaders to capture the state.

Bosnia’s local elections saw ruling parties on the national level losing key strongholds in Sarajevo and Banja Luka, suggesting a potential shift on country’s stale political scene.