Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik has said yesterday that Republic Day represents freedom and that preserving peace and stability is the main national goal of Srpska.
Dodik says that Republic Day is celebrated with the wish that everyone, regardless of religion and nation, live freely, cooperate and have the same rights, regardless of the fact that Republika Srpska is the state of the Serb people.
“Our main national goal is to preserve peace and stability. Our national and state goal is to preserve the Dayton Peace Agreement, to preserve the Constitution of BiH as it was written, not as interpreted by various passers-by”, Dodik told the press after the ceremonial gathering in Banjaluka on the occasion of Republic Day.
He points out that Republika Srpska wants stability, integration into the global world with no intent of harming anyone.
Speaking about the decoration he awarded the Russian President Vladimir Putin with on the occasion of the Republic Day, Dodik said that relations between Republika Srpska and Russia are not related to the conflict in Ukraine and that Putin deserved that decoration as he protected the Dayton Peace Agreement.
He pointed out that Srpska could not renounce the people who are the guarantors of the Dayton Peace Agreement and who did everything to properly protect that agreement.
“This award was planned a long time ago. It was discussed a year and a half ago and it is a proposal that many associations and groups of friends in Republika Srpska proposed. If there had not been a conflict in Ukraine, this would have happened anyway because it has been being prepared for a long time”, said Dodik.
When asked if he expects possible sanctions, Dodik said that he is not entitled to measure his behavior according to whether some offended individual “who is not doing well in his own country” would propose sanctions.
“We are doing what we believe is best here. The Russian Federation has shown its objective face here by attending political life as a member of the Peace Implementation Council, while some others were violating Dayton when Russia opposed it. This has nothing to do with Ukraine regardless that many will relate it to it”, said Dodik.
