Opponents attacked Austria’s far-right Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache Thursday for saying Bosnia and Herzegovina can’t function as a state and its Serb Republic region should have the right to become independent.
Strache made the comments in an interview with the Serb Republic’s public TV station back in September, before he went into government, but they gained wide attention at home after being publicized this week by Austria’s NEOS liberal opposition party.
His remarks contradict the longstanding foreign policy of Austria and other Western nations. They have insisted Bosnia and Herzegovina must remain a single country, in accordance with the 1995 Dayton peace agreement, which brought to an end three years of war that killed about 100,000 people and forced millions from their homes. The peace deal split the country into two largely autonomous regions — the Serb Republic and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is home mainly to Bosniaks and Croats.
Western governments and many analysts maintain that any move towards independence for the Serb Republic would almost certainly reignite widespread violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina and elsewhere in the Balkans.
“I would like to know why the international community insists on a multi-ethnic Bosnia and Herzegovina. Today’s Bosnia and Herzegovina can’t function,” Strache said in the interview.
“The international community is protecting an artificially created state through violence, which does not reflect the wishes of the people in that state,” said Strache, leader of the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), the junior partner in Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s government.
Strache said the only part of Bosnia and Herzegovina that functioned was the Serb Republic. “For this reason, we should consider the possibility of giving the Serb Republic the right to break away,” he said.
Stephanie Krisper, the NEOS’ foreign policy spokesperson, said Strache’s close relationship with Serb Republic President Milorad Dodik has been damaged Austria’s international standing.
“Dodik is a genocide denier who has demanded the destruction of Bosnia multiple times,” Krisper said, according to Der Standard.
“By maintaining these kind of friendships through the vice chancellor, Austria’s decades-long role as a mediator in the Western Balkans will be destroyed,” Krisper said.
Asked about the video, Strache told Austrian radio Thursday he supported “the territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, just as much as people’s right to self-determination for a sustainable and necessary peace process,” Die Presse reported.
Andreas Schieder, acting parliamentary leader of the main opposition Social Democrats, accused Strache of practising “very dangerous political arson” with his comments in the television interview.
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