Bosnia’s defense minister on Wednesday blocked Hungary’s foreign minister from flying in on a military aircraft and landing in Banja Luka, the administrative center of Bosnia’s Serb entity.
Minister Zukan Helez wrote on Facebook that Hungary had provided no clear explanation for Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto's planned arrival in a military aircraft.
Helez added that Szijjarto and Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban had both supported ousted Bosnian-Serb leader Milorad Dodik "in actions that undermine the sovereignty, territorial integrity and cohesion of Bosnia and Herzegovina."
Dodik was ejected from office in August following his conviction for ignoring rulings by the international envoy who oversees Bosnia's peace deal, which has held the country together since the end of its 1990s inter-ethnic war.
The conflict killed more than 100,000 people and left the country split into two semi-autonomous halves – the Serb-run Republika Srpska and a Bosniak-Croat federation – linked by weak central institutions.
In a parallel trip to Budapest on Wednesday, Dodik met with Orban in his first visit abroad since his chosen replacement won Sunday's presidential elections in the Serb entity.
Dodik, in a post on X, also labelled his political ban from office as an "unconstitutional decision" to smear Republika Srpska.
Helez, who is authorised to approve the flight path over Bosnia, wrote that it is his "duty as defence minister to uphold the constitutional order and the law".
"For that reason, I decided not to approve this flight until full transparency and respect for our state are ensured," he wrote.
It comes after Szijjarto visited Belgrade, announcing a deal to increase oil product exports to Serbia as the country's only oil refinery faces a shutdown within days due to U.S. sanctions over its Russian ownership.
