LONDON (Reuters) -Britain said on Monday it had imposed sanctions on Bosnian Serb separatist leader Milorad Dodik and a second Bosnian-Serb politician for what it described as their attempts to undermine the legitimacy and functionality of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Bosnia has been going through its worst political crisis since the end of the Balkan wars of the 1990s, with Bosnian Serbs challenging state institutions as part of their longtime bid to secede and eventually join neighbouring Serbia.
The sanctions on Dodik and Zeljka Cvijanovic, President of the entity of Republika Srpska, include travel bans and asset freezes, the government said.
“These two politicians are deliberately undermining the hard won peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Encouraged by (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, their reckless behaviour threatens stability and security across the Western Balkans,” British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a statement.
The United States sanctioned Dodik, who is the Serb member of Bosnia’s inter-ethnic tripartite presidency which makes decisions on the Balkan country’s foreign policy, in January.
EU officials have said the bloc would consider sanctions on Bosnia’s Serb Republic and also withhold financial support if the political crisis continues to worsen, but so far no sanctions were introduced. The bloc doubled its peacekeeping force in Bosnia as a precautionary measure to stave off instability after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Britain said Dodik had “driven action to withdraw Republika Srpska from key State institutions, using divisive, dangerous, nationalist rhetoric, undermining domestic and regional peace and encouraging ethnic hatred and genocide denial.”
The news on UK sanctions caught Dodik in the parliament of the Bosnian Serb entity.
“I have no assets in the UK and I have not been there in 10 years,” web portal http://www.klix.ba quoted Dodik as saying to the parliament.
Cvijanovic has publicly glorified war criminals and denied the genocide at Srebrenica, the British government said.
(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; Additional reporting Ivana Sekularac in Belgrade; Editing by Kate Holton)
