“This very serious accusation is causing enormous damage to Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially since the chairman of the Presidency of BiH is involved,” the Minister of Foreign Affairs of our country, Bisera Turkovic, told BHRT today.
Earlier, the Embassy of Ukraine in Bosnia and Herzegovina sent a note to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of BiH asking for detailed information on the origin of objects from the Ukrainian cultural heritage which was presented by the Chairman of the Presidency of BiH Milorad Dodik to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov, during his visit to BiH on December 14.
In an interview with N1, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bisera Turkovic, said that they had received a diplomatic note from the Embassy of Ukraine asking for a statement on how the 300-year-old icon was in the possession of BiH, ie the chairman of the Presidency of BiH, Milorad Dodik.
Minister Turkovic forwarded the mentioned diplomatic note to the Presidency of BiH for a statement and, as she stated, they need to establish the factual situation.
“I see that there are thoughts that SIPA and the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH would be involved in order to end this case,” said Turkovic.
It is a 300-year-old icon, whose origin is from Lugansk, Ukraine, on which a stamp is imprinted, which proves its originality, and whose photo from the award was published by the Serbian news agency SRNA.
The icon was handed to Lavrov during a meeting at the Republika Srpska government headquarters in East Sarajevo, which was also attended by RS government leaders and the president of the Bosnian entity Zeljka Cvijanovic.