ĐURAGIĆ: KONAKOVIĆ’S IMPROVISATIONS, LACK OF INSTITUTIONAL KNOWLEDGE, AND MANIPULATIONS HAVE BECOME RECOGNIZABLE

BRUSSELS, OCTOBER 24 /SRNA/ – Following the adoption of the Individually Tailored Partnership Programme /ITPP/ between BiH and NATO at the Alliance HQ in Brussels, the Foreign Minister in the Council of Ministers, Elmedin Konaković, once again attempted to present this technical document as a “major step” toward NATO membership and thereby, for who knows how many times, to politically manipulate the public, Mario Đuragić, Head of the Republika Srpska Representative Office in Brussels, told SRNA.

“When it comes to Minister Konaković’s work, it is clear that the only thing he has truly learned is how to act against Republika Srpska and its legitimately elected representatives, although even that doesn’t seem to be going well for him. His frequent improvisations and lack of institutional knowledge have become recognizable, which is why his colleagues abroad perceive him as a Bosniak foreign minister, not as a representative of BiH,” Đuragić emphasized.

He stressed that this context also explains Konaković’s latest interpretation of the ITPP as a “major step toward NATO membership.”

Reacting to Konaković’s claim that the adoption of the ITPP between BiH and NATO represents a significant move toward full membership in the Alliance, Đuragić said that, unlike the minister’s superficial interpretations, the facts are clear: it is about a partnership programme adopted by NATO in 2021 under the “one partner – one plan” concept as cooperation framework with all partner countries, not only those aspiring to join the Alliance.

Moreover, he says, the ITPP represents a less intensive form of cooperation than the previous PARP process, which operated on a two-year cycle, while the ITPP functions on a four-year cycle, meaning that it is a lower, not higher, level of cooperation.

“The document itself explicitly states that BiH - NATO cooperation does not prejudge the final decision on membership, which makes it a partnership, not an integration framework. The best example of this is Azerbaijan, which maintains the same type of cooperation without any membership aspirations.

The ITPP could not have been adopted without the consent of Republika Srpska representatives, which is the fact proving no decision, including this one, can be privatized by a single minister without respecting constitutional mechanisms and the equality of entities, “ the head od the Srpska Representative Office explained.

He pointed out that the adopted document regsrding cooperation with an organiation which, paradoxically for Minister Konaković, exerted key pressure for the replacement - after almost six years in office, although the law prescribes four - of the Chief of the BiH Armed Forces’ Joint Staff from the Bosniak ethnic group with a Serb.

“Minister Konaković would have plenty to reproach NATO for it, in which case, the supposed political ‘winner’ would very quickly turn into a loser,” Đuragić said.

Although it remains unclear whether Konaković is once again joking or simply trying to turn political weakness into a supposed success, while his party, reduced to little more than a name, is rapidly disintegrating and turning into a statistical error, Đuragić says that the facts remain firm: the ITPP is not a step toward NATO membership, but a technical cooperation document, agreed upon and accepted by all legitimate representatives within BiH institutions.