KARAN: ATTEMPTS TO UNDERMINE THE SERB NATIONAL AND POLITICAL BEING WILL FAIL

BANJA LUKA, SEPTEMBER 17 /SRNA/ - Republika Srpska President Siniša Karan said that attempts to undermine the Serb national and political being would fail, stressing that Srpska's response must be to further strengthen its special and parallel ties with Serbia.

Speaking about an initiative by a group of Bosniak members of the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH to suspend the Agreement on Special and Parallel Relations between Republika Srpska and Serbia, Karan pointed out that the All-Serb Assembly Declaration and the special and parallel ties were precisely the response to such attempts. "These attacks have been going on for a full 30 years. Since the Dayton Peace Agreement, there have been continuous and increasingly intense attacks on the constitutional and legal position of Republika Srpska and the Serb people," Karan said. He said that the Bosniak political elite had never accepted Republika Srpska and the Serb people in the sense prescribed by the Constitution. Karan said that such attacks followed precisely after the breakup of former Yugoslavia, when the Serb national and political being was disrupted. "Republika Srpska was created as a response to precisely such attacks," Karan told RTRS. Karan stressed that no one can abolish the special and parallel relations, because in essence they predate BiH. He said that one of the key elements in the creation of Republika Srpska was the desire to maintain continuity with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the mother country, Serbia, and pointed to the significance of the fact that the special and parallel relations are provided for in Annex 4, that is, the Dayton Agreement. "It is no coincidence that such an instrument is included in the Constitution. It was precisely the result of the fact that those who drafted the Constitution and the Dayton Agreement were fully aware that a part of one people had been torn away, which is why our representatives at Dayton insisted that at least the constitutional provision allowing them to maintain the continuity of their shared life with their mother country, Serbia, should remain," Karan stressed. Karan said that the special and parallel relations encompass all possible forms of cooperation related to identity, which form the basis for the shared existence of a single people. According to him, the special and parallel relations are merely a reflection of what was once the unity of the Serb people. He pointed out that through various systems, particularly in the previous century, and through various administrative barriers, the national and political unity of the Serb people was continually undermined, which is why the Day of Serb Unity, Freedom and the National Flag is so significant. Karan said that the holiday had been celebrated for the sixth consecutive year and that there were also a large number of other joint holidays and events, noting that this was due to the efforts of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and President Milorad Dodik. According to him, such events demonstrate that Serbs are one and united people. Karan recalled that the Day of Serb Unity, Freedom and the National Flag was established to commemorate the breakthrough of the Salonika Front and the end of the First World War, noting that at the time the relatively small Serb people made perhaps the greatest sacrifices compared with all other peoples. "It brought freedom not only to the Serb people, but to other peoples as well," Karan said.