PETKOVIĆ: BiH ONLY COUNTRY THAT CELEBRATES START OF WAR

ISTOČNO SARAJEVO, FEBRUARY 28 /SRNA/ - BiH is the only country that celebrates the start of a war and seeks to present it as the so-called Independence Day, which only fuels divisions, and this is clearly the ONLY goal of Bosniaks, Milan Petković, a member of the BiH House of Representatives, has stated for SRNA.

Petković said that Serbs do not accept March 1 because they know what happened on that day in 1992 - an illegal referendum in which they did not participate, the beginning of the war in BiH, and the killing of a Serb wedding guest Nikola Gardović near the Old Orthodox Church in Baščaršija.

"Instead of seeking laws that unite the peoples of BiH, some want to celebrate something that divides them. This is particularly done by Bosniaks, who always want BiH as their own country, entirely Bosniak, without accepting the views of either Serbs or Croats," said Petković, who also chairs the Serb Club in the BiH Parliamentary Assembly’s House of Representatives.

He believes it would be better for all peoples in BiH to celebrate November 21, the anniversary of the Dayton Peace Accords, which ended the war in BiH and gave the country a form of territorial integrity, regardless of claims by Bosniak politicians about statehood continuity dating back to 1992, when BiH was recognized by the United Nations.

"We are now talking about the BiH we know today, which is BiH with two entities and three constituent peoples, and which was created in Dayton," Petković stated.

Petković mentioned that dates that unite rather than divide should be sought if BiH is to be built on healthy foundations, as a country of three constituent peoples and others living in it.

In the part of the Federation of BiH with a Bosniak majority, March 1 is marked as the so-called "BiH Independence Day", as this was the date of the illegal referendum on BiH’s independence and secession from the SFRY. Serbs in Republika Srpska remember March 1 as the day a Serb wedding guest was killed in Sarajevo, which triggered the start of the war.