Turkey attaches great importance to the peace and stability of the Balkans, Parliament Speaker Mustafa Şentop said as he arrived in Bosnia-Herzegovina on Monday for a two-day official visit.
Şentop began his visit by attending an iftar dinner to break the daily fast during the holy month of Ramadan at the Islamic Cultural Center in the city of Livno in western Bosnia-Herzegovina.
He distributed gifts to children at the cultural center and ignited the fast-breaking cannon.
The iftar program began with children chanting.
Şentop said that Turks and Bosniaks share many common values.
"Dear brothers, wherever we are in the world, there are very important values that unite us. Undoubtedly, we have many common values that bind us together, including our faith, history and Ramadan. In such a blessed month, we wanted to come together at a blessed table and have our iftar together,'' he said.
Şentop emphasized that the Republic of Turkey attaches great importance to the peace and stability of the Balkans.
"We are in a geography that has experienced very difficult times and suffered greatly. Your elders, fathers, uncles went through difficult times. Thank God now the Balkans are in a peaceful environment. As Turkey, we attach great importance to the peace and stability of the entire Balkans, especially Bosnia-Herzegovina,'' said Şentop.
Dzevad Hadzic, chairperson of the Assembly of Islamic Union in Livno, said Turkey is of great importance to Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Şentop will meet with members of the Collegium of the House of Representatives and the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly on Tuesday in the capital Sarajevo.
He will be received by members of the tripartite Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina. He will also attend a joint iftar in Travnik on Wednesday and then travel to North Macedonia.
Turkey last year expressed its readiness to act as a mediator in the political crisis in Bosnia-Herzegovina and will do what it can to ensure stability amid concerns over separatist moves by Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik.
Bosnia-Herzegovina has seen a separatist push since Dodik, the Serb member of the country’s tripartite presidency, blasted legal changes banning the denial of genocide and glorifying war criminals. In a nonbinding motion paving the way for secession from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serb lawmakers last year voted to start pulling their autonomous Serb Republic out of the country's armed forces, tax system and judiciary.
Turkey has been taking diplomatic initiatives to de-escalate tensions in Bosnia-Herzegovina. On Jan. 18, Erdoğan announced that he and his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic had agreed to broker crisis talks involving all parties in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Erdoğan urged the international community to act together while Vucic, for his part, underlined that Belgrade highly respects the territorial integrity of neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina. "We want to convene the three leaders – of Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs – and accomplish this. We agreed on this," Erdoğan said, adding the talks could be held in Istanbul or Belgrade.
During the 1992-95 interethnic war that killed 100,000 people and turned half of the country’s population into refugees, Bosniaks and Croats were persecuted and almost completely expelled from the now Serb-administered half of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
After the war, under the terms of the United States-brokered Dayton peace agreement, Bosnia-Herzegovina was divided into two semi-autonomous governing entities – Republika Srpska and a federation dominated by Bosniaks and Croats.
Each part has its own government, parliament and police, but the two are linked by shared, statewide institutions, including the judiciary, army, security agencies and tax administration. All actions at a national level require consensus from all three ethnic groups.
Dodik has for years been advocating the separation of the Bosnian Serb mini-state from the rest of the country and making it part of neighboring Serbia. This winter, he intensified his secessionist campaign.
Turkey, which has deep-rooted historical ties with the Balkans, has criticized the move as "wrong, dangerous" and has offered to mediate in the crisis. Meanwhile, Dodik has said that the fate of Bosnia-Herzegovina depends on discussions between local lawmakers with the support of Erdoğan and his Serbian and Croatian counterparts.
