Bosnia's rival ethnic leaders must compromise on the country's future or risk falling behind the rest of the Balkans as the region integrates with the European Union, international diplomats said on Friday.
At a time when some say relations between ethnic groups have sunk to their worst level since the end of the 1992-95 war, EU and US diplomats brought together local politicians in Sarajevo to seek a lasting compromise solution.
"This is a good start, I am an optimist," Sulejman Tihic, the head of the biggest Bosnian Muslim SDA party, told Reuters.
"We were promised that Bosnia could apply for an EU candidate status by the New Year if the whole process is completed satisfactorily, speed up the process towards Nato membership and get visa-free travel in the EU."
In talks with seven political leaders from ethnic Serb, Muslim Bosniak and Croat parties, Western diplomats set sign posts for fulfilling conditions to end the country's status as an international protectorate and creating a functional political system. "We want Bosnia to go forward, but it requires decisions from the Bosnian political leaders," said Carl Bildt, the Swedish foreign minister who co-hosted the talks with US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn.
"We are not going to hold the region hostage to Bosnia." All the countries of the emerging Balkans want to join the European Union but Bosnia's instability could complicate investment and development across the region. Some experts and locals say continued fundamental disagreements about Bosnia's future could lead to renewed fighting.
"The problem is that we never resolved the last war," a Sarajevo taxi driver said on the eve of the talks. The diplomats said they would return to Sarajevo on October 20 after Bosnians and foreign experts work on draft reforms on the constitution and other areas. "There are obvious disagreements, surprise, surprise," Bildt told Reuters after the talks.
Diplomats are hoping for progress before November 18-19, when the international community will decide whether to end the protectorate status under which an Austrian diplomat has ultimate power to overturn laws or fire officials in Bosnia. "We face a critical time in Bosnia-Herzegovina's future ... that offers us both an opportunity to accelerate Bosnia Herzegovina's Euro-Atlantic integration, or, if we fail ... continued stalemate," Steinberg told a news conference.
The protectorate status decision has divided nations, with some saying Bosnia needs to stand on its own and others expressing fear that it may lead to new blockades and conflicts.
Janhar Saleem, Pakistan's ambassador to Bosnia, drew a Balkan parallel with the international community's withdrawal from Afghanistan after Soviet forces left in 1989. Unsolved problems then have proved deadly and much more costly since. "The history of this region is a history of neglect by the European Union in many ways," he said in an interview. "It's almost like a fire brigade that comes late every time."