threatens Dodik: Form Republika Srpska Army

At a ceremony in Banja Luka marking the anniversary of the creation of Bosnian Serb paramilitaries in 1992 by RS officials, Dodik attacked High Representative for BiH Christian Schmidt and the most powerful Western states that strongly support his mandate.

He claimed Schmidt's report to the UN Security Council on Wednesday falsely portrayed the situation in BiH because of claims that RS authorities were taking illegal actions leading to the overthrow of Dayton and undermining the stability of BiH as a state.

Dodik said it is inaccurate, or that he and his associates have been “defenders of the Constitution” and not destructive of the Dayton Constitution.

The Dayton Agreement envisions the RS Army and that is completely legitimate and even if we enter that process, it is a struggle for the constitution,” said Dodik.

The agreement that ended the war in BiH in 1995 did indeed tolerate the existence of entity armies, but they were abolished in 2004 when the BiH United Armed Forces were established on the basis of an agreement between the two entities.

Dodik now claims it was due to the large “violence by the international community” and said RS has the right to withdraw unilaterally from all agreements that have agreed to create different state-level institutions, including the military, since the end of the war.

In his report to the Security Council, High Representative Schmidt warned that such steps would be a direct threat to peace and could lead to a resumption of the armed conflict in BiH.

Otherwise, the United States and Britain have imposed sanctions on Dodik for minimising the Dayton Agreement and corruption, preventing him from travelling to those countries and imposing financial restrictions.