RUSSIA'S ANNOUNCEMENT ON ADVOCATING FOR CESSATION OF OHR OPERATION SIGNIFICANT

BANJA LUKA, APRIL 3 /SRNA/ - Bojan Šolaja of the International and Security Studies Centre has emphasized the importance of the meeting between the presidents of Russia and Serbia, Vladimir Putin, and Milorad Dodik, in Moscow, at which the Russian party announced it would advocate for the cessation of the OHR operation in BiH.

Šolaja expressed the hope it would be a positive step forward for BiH in general, as well as that in the coming period, local politicians would come to their sense to take responsibility, sit down and try to reach an internal agreement.

This is something that the Republika Srpska leadership has been promoting for a number of years; now we have reached global situations, which are moving in the direction of finding a solution, not only for the current crisis, but for the functioning of BiH in general," Šolaja told SRNA.

He believes that Putin emphasizing the importance of Russia's role as a guarantor of the Dayton Peace Agreement, as well as it advocating for the OHR abolishment in BiH is significant

"After all what was happening with Christian Schmidt, it is good to think in the direction of the local institutions in BiH taking responsibility for the country in full capacity," Šolaja said.

He believes that it should have happened much earlier, because it was Schmidt's activities in the past few years that led BiH today to be much further away from the starting position it had in 1995, after the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement.

"Enthusiasm that something can be done in the future as a positive step has disappeared. BiH has been a kind of hostage to a certain international presence for 30 years and the time has come to end it. Therefore, every meeting that the president of Srpska holds in his capacity with people who are directly related to the Dayton Peace Agreement is important, so that we can plan what to do next," noted Šolaja.

Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, April 1 in Moscow. After the meeting, Dodik stated that he had discussed with Putin the necessity of ending the international interventionism that has so degraded BiH and made it the country impossible.