The president of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, says the U.S. Embassy in Bosnia-Herzegovina has rejected his request for a diplomatic visa.
The visa would enable Dodik to travel to the United States for the January inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, to which he has been invited.
Dodik told RTRS, the public broadcaster of the Serb Republic that the embassy’s rationale for such a move was that he was not going there as a representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Dodik, the head of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s autonomous Bosnian Serb entity, said that the invitation to attend the inauguration came from people in Trump’s campaign.
Dodik recounted in detail a telephone conversation he had last week with U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Hoyt Yee, who asked him to give up the policies of his pro-Russia separatist party, and “to respond to the prosecution of Bosnia-Herzegovina.”
Dodik described Yee’s comments as “a harangue directed by U.S. Ambassador to Bosnia-Herzegovina Maureen Cormack,” who he said was present during the phone conversation.
RTRS said in its report that Yee “blamed Dodik for the deadlock of Bosnia-Herzegovina on its path towards the EU.”
(Radio Free Europe, 29.12.2016)
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