Bosnian Serb leader tempers secession talk as U.S. exerts pressure

By Ivana Sekularac

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia (Reuters) - The nationalist leader of Bosnia's post-war Serb region said on Monday he had no plans to seek secession, appearing to step back from earlier calls for a breakaway republic just as the United States stepped up pressure against him.

In 2021, Milorad Dodik, the pro-Russian president of the Republika Srpska (RS), triggered the most serious political crisis since the 1992-95 war when he said he would pull the region out of key Bosnian state institutions, such as the judiciary, the tax system and the joint armed forces.

Dodik did not follow through on the threat, saying he would await a more geopolitically opportune moment to carry it out.

But he told Reuters in an interview in the RS capital Banja Luka on Monday that secession was not part of his plan.

"We are not calling for revolution. We are not preparing for war, we are preparing for political decisions on the level of the state parliament and on the level of the Republika Srpska parliament," Dodik said.

He said political dialogue between ethnic groups in Bosnia was necessary to secure greater autonomy for the Serb entity.

"In the first phase, we need to secure dialogue between political parties in Bosnia, without the participation of foreigners, in order to secure a sustainable agreement. Otherwise Bosnia has no future."

The U.S.-brokered Dayton Peace Accords guaranteed Bosnia as a single country but divided it into widely autonomous entities, the Bosniak-Croat Federation and the RS.

The United States remains a staunch supporter of Bosnian unity and on Monday sent two F-16 fighter jets to fly over Bosnia to underline U.S. support for its territorial integrity.

Nevertheless, Dodik remains a defiant supporter of at least far-reaching autonomy, if not secession and union with neighbouring Serbia as he has previously advocated.

On Monday evening Bosnian Serbs led by Dodik will begin celebrations of their self-proclaimed statehood day, which was banned as discriminatory against non-Serbs by Bosnia´s constitutional court.

A parade of police and special forces is slated for Tuesday.

In the interview, Dodik was outspoken against what he calls international interference in Bosnian affairs, in which an international peace envoy wields executive powers on matters to do with upholding the Dayton treaty.

He said that if current envoy Christian Schmidt tried to visit the RS he would be asked to leave. Dodik said his mandate was illegitimate as it was not confirmed by the U.N. Security Council, where the Serbs' big power ally Russia wields a veto.

He said foreigners should have no role in Bosnia's politics, including the Constitutional Court in which three international judges work along with two judges from each of the three ethnicities - Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs.

Dodik has been under U.S. and British sanctions for acts undermining the integrity of the Dayton accords and putting the western Balkan country's peace at risk.

"Sanctions against me are part of the hybrid war that is being conducted against Republika Srpska," Dodik said, accusing foreign diplomats working in Bosnia of being anti-Serb.

(Reporting by Ivana Sekularac; editing by Edward McAllister and Mark Heinrich)