Croatia's Foreign and European Affairs Minister, Vesna Pusic, expressed regret on Tuesday that Bosnian Foreign Minister Zlatko Lagumdzija had avoided a working lunch with Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic on Monday during his visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina, adding that she thought that would not affect the long-term positive development of relations between the two countries.
"I regret he didn't come, I think he made a mistake. I think it was the first step, possibly not the most skilful one, in a relationship that must develop in the long term. I don't think this fact will affect the positive development of relations in the long run, in which the foreign minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina will also play an important role. I hope we will develop a good working relationship," Pusic said when asked to comment on Lagumdzija's move.
Lagumdzija's close party associate Nermin Niksic, who also serves as premier of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Bosniak-Croat entity, did not attend the working lunch either. Lagumdzija explained his move by saying that Milanovic's visit was too focused on Bosnia and Herzegovina's ethnic make-up.
"Bosnia and Herzegovina is not a simple sum of three ethnic groups. Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of not just three constituent peoples but also of four million citizens. For my taste there has been too much rhetoric about ethnic groups today and not much about man," Lagumdzija said in Sarajevo when asked why he had not attended the lunch with the prime minister of Croatia.
