Erdoğan warns against steps harming Bosnian territorial integrity

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Tuesday urged all parties in Bosnia to refrain from steps that could endanger the country's territorial integrity, amid a crisis over separatist moves by Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik.

At a joint news conference after meeting Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in Ankara, Erdoğan added that the international community should act together to solve the crisis in Bosnia.

Mostly Muslim Turkey has long had deep-rooted ties with the Balkans. It backed Bosnia's late Bosniak Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic during its 1990s war but has forged good relations with its post-war, inter-ethnic Bosniak-Serb-Croat presidency.

Bosnia was split into two widely autonomous regions - a Serb Republic (RS) and a Federation dominated by Bosniaks and Croats overlaid by a loose central government after the war.

The crisis flared after Serb Republic lawmakers passed a non-binding motion last year to start pulling the RS out of Bosnia's armed forces, tax system and judiciary, a move long backed by nationalist Serb leader Milorad Dodik.

Turkey has criticised the move as "wrong, dangerous" and has offered to mediate in the crisis, which has raised concerns of a relapse into ethnic conflict.

Vucic called on Dodik last week to return to national institutions that the RS has boycotted since mid-2021 over a law criminalizing the denial of genocide.

International war crimes judgments have branded the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in Srebrenica by Serb forces as genocide, something Serbs deny.

Dodik's secessionist rhetoric has spurred hard-line nationalist rallies and incidents in towns across the Serb Republic.

Earlier this month, the United States imposed new sanctions on Dodik for corruption and threatening the stability and territorial integrity of Bosnia. The European Union also said last week the Bosnian Serb leadership faced EU sanctions and a loss of aid should it continue to incite tensions.