Serbian President Boris Tadic met with Republika Srpska (RS) President Rajko Kuzmanovic in Belgrade on Tuesday to discuss numerous issues of interest to Serbia, RS and Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH), and reiterated that Serbia remains committed to the Dayton Agreement.

Tadic said that Serbia is a signatory and guarantor of the 1995 Dayton Agreement for Peace in BiH, which ensures the legitimate rights of the two entities and three nations in that country, and also allows special parallel relations between RS and Serbia.

The agreement implies that only those decisions agreed by all three nations are legitimate, and Serbia remains committed to that, said Tadic.

“The Dayton Agreement also allows for special, parallel relations between Serbia and RS, and we have done a lot in the past years because of that,” the president was quoted as saying by the Serbian news agency TANJUG.

Serbia will continue to protect and respect the legitimate rights of all people in the Western Balkans, Tadic noted.

According to Tadic, Serbia respects all international agreements, as well as UN and EU standards, in its efforts to help preserve the Serbian culture and language in areas where Serbs live.

Kuzmanovic, who is nearing the end of his presidential term, informed Tadic that there are efforts in BiH to radically change the Constitution and form of government after the election on Oct. 3.

“A unitarian concept is unacceptable for BiH. RS has always been in favor of compromise, but there can be no compromise when someone is trying to diminish the constitutional capacity of RS and change the decision making mechanism,” Kuzmanovic said at a news conference after the meeting with Tadic.

Kuzmanovic and Tadic also discussed Kosovo, and Kuzmanovic said that RS would support any agreement between Belgrade and Pristina.

September 28, 2010
XINHUA

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