The sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina is mentioned nine times, and all nine mentions refer to the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina and none to the BiH entities, BiH Presidency member Denis Bećirović said today.
In a statement after continuing to make unfounded claims that the state of BiH "does not have sovereignty" or that the state "has only a part of the sovereignty derived" from the entities, he also pointed out that sovereignty is mentioned twice in the main part of the Dayton Agreement and twice in Annex 1-A, which refers to military issues and five times in Annex 4. I'd like to have a constitution.
- It is directly mentioned five times, but there are also two 'indirect' mentions in Article I 1, which refers to continuity, which is very important, and Article II 7, which refers to international agreements, which emphasizes that BiH will remain or become a party to the international agreements listed in Annex 1 to the Constitution of BiH. This is a direct confirmation of state sovereignty, he noted.
He points out that it is particularly important that the main text of the Dayton Agreement and Annex 1, in addition to Annex 10, are parts of the Dayton Agreement, whose signatories are also the Republic of Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, of which Serbia is the legal successor.
- Serbia, as well as Croatia, through the main part of the Agreement and Annex 1 of the Dayton Agreement, has committed itself four times to respect the sovereignty of the Republic of BiH (whose legal existence was continued by the same state under the name Bosnia and Herzegovina). Moreover, Serbia has undertaken in Article I of the Dayton Agreement that "the parties will fully respect each other's sovereign equality," he added.
Given the "sovereign equality" of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, which Serbia has recognized with its signature, it is a completely untenable thesis, Bećirović says, that Bosnia and Herzegovina derive sovereignty from the entities or that the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina is to any extent diminished or in any way different from the sovereignty of Serbia.
He added that 10. The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina omits Croatia and focuses on Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, stipulating that the two countries "recognize each other as sovereign and independent states", and Bećirović points out that the recognition of the sovereignty of these two states was mutual and identical.
"Annex 1 then explicitly stipulated that all armed forces in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina would act in accordance with the sovereignty and territorial integrity of BiH, and this then included forces of neighbouring states that did not withdraw from the state territory of BiH within 30 days," Bećirović concluded in a statement.