During the meeting on Wednesday night between the Ambassador of the United States of America (USA) to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) – Eric Nelson and the Deputy Representative of the House of Peoples of BiH – Dragan Covic, numerous topics were discussed, and one of them was the migrant crisis in our country.
To the opinions advocated by the European Union (EU) and the USA, which state that migrants must be equally distributed on the territory of the entire state, Covic answered that such a solution is out of the question.
“I placed special emphasis on the security and political dimension of the issue. We must fully respect the laws of BiH, that say, so the migrant who enters BiH must be registered and stationed at the same place, and he needs to be treated following the laws of BiH, and not to allow them to go wherever they want without even knowing who they are. We are ready to do all it takes in state institutions, set aside the necessary funds, if necessary change some laws, but not move migrants throughout the territory of BiH. That is not an option “, Covic said categorically.
To recall, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy – Josep Borrell sent a letter to BiH Presidency Chairman Milorad Dodik last month, demanding that he deploys migrants in BiH equally, and pointed out the need to prevent a humanitarian crisis and engage the Armed Forces of BiH.
Una-Sana, Tuzla, and Sarajevo Canton were the most affected by the migrant crisis, and part of BiH authorities support the international community’s view that migrants should be moved to other cantons, as well as to the RS. Dodik and Covic categorically rejected such a scenario several times, Klix.ba writes.