NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in Sarajevo on Tuesday there were no doubts within NATO as to whether Bosnia-Herzegovina should join the alliance, but underlined that reforms must be carried out before that.
Rasmussen also condemned Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik's call to negotiations on "disassociation" within Bosnia-Herzegovina.
I call on all sides to stop the nationalist rhetoric and make sure that Bosnia-Herzegovina stays an integral country, Rasmussen said in response to questions from press to comment on the statement by Dodik, who openly suggested for the first time that it was time for "a peaceful break-up" in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Rasmussen visited Sarajevo together with ambassadors of the North Atlantic Council (NAC). They held talks with the members of the state Presidency about Bosnia-Herzegovina's request to join the Membership Action Plan (MAP), which is the last step before joining NATO.
Bosnian authorities expected that NATO foreign ministers might approve Bosnia-Herzegovina's accession to MAP at a meeting in Tallin on April 22.
Rasmussen confirmed that NATO's door remained open to Bosnia-Herzegovina, but said that expectations to join MAP were unrealistic at present, as the country must carry out the required reforms.
We must see progress in reforms, he said, adding this did not refer only to military issues, but also to amendments to the electoral law so that it could be aligned with a European Court of Human Rights ruling which found that Bosnia-Herzegovina's current electoral legislation violates ethnic minorities' human and civil rights.
Rasmussen said it would be very important for NATO if Bosnia-Herzegovina finally adopted a decision to send an additional unit to Afghanistan to join the ISAF mission.
Bosnia-Herzegovina will get the MAP when it makes the required progress in reforms, he said.
Presidency chairman Haris Silajdzic said the government's commitment to join NATO was clear and that "only those who don't want Bosnia-Herzegovina to survive as a state" were against that.
Commenting on Dodik's call for "disassociation", Silajdzic said it was part of the same wartime plan to "destroy (Bosnia-Herzegovina) with cannons and now they are doing it through microphones".
"Those who don't like it in Bosnia-Herzegovina can leave but they can't take anything from Bosnia-Herzegovina. This should be clear," he said, adding that all those speaking about the country's disintegration were "completely outside of history".
