Question: What can you say about the referendum held in Republika Srpska (Bosnia and Herzegovina) on the entity’s holiday, the Day of Republika Srpska?

Maria Zakharova: We oppose the artificial politicisation of this issue. We perceive the September 25, 2016 referendum in Republika Srpska (Bosnia and Herzegovina) in the context of implementing broad powers of the country’s both entities, including those for introducing and determining various holidays, as envisaged by the 1995 General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (the Dayton Agreement). One positive aspect we would like to comment on is that the referendum took place without any incidents, with over 55 percent of eligible Republika Srpska voters taking part in it.

We are confident that this step is in no way aimed at undermining the territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its decentralised constitutional system stipulated by the Dayton Agreement. As a guarantor of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia consistently supports its key principles. Therefore we consider it absolutely unacceptable that the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina should use extraordinary Bonn Powers as regards the procedure for formalising the results of the Republika Srpska referendum.

We are doing our best to launch the intra-Bosnian dialogue on all sensitive issues for Bosnia and Herzegovina and its entities and guarantee its constructive continuation, while closely cooperating with the Bosnian sides and maintaining contacts with our partners on the Steering Board of the Peace Implementation Council. We advocate the all-out use of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s constitutional, legal, political and consultative mechanisms. We see no alternative to talks aimed at finding sustainable solutions on topical issues of the Bosnian political settlement.