Bosnian Serb PM Rejects U.S.-Backed Reform Plan

United States-hosted talks between Bosnia's rival Serb and Muslim leaders hit a rough patch on Thursday.

United States-hosted talks between Bosnia's rival Serb and Muslim leaders hit a rough patch on Thursday, as the Bosnian Serbs rejected a reform deal the European Union demands as a prerequisite to closer ties.

Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik and top Bosnian Muslim leader Haris Silajdzic were invited to Washington this week in an attempt to strong-arm the two rivals into a compromise after months of disagreement.

Key issues are the reform of the constitution and the unification of Bosnia's ethnically divided police forces.

Both are hangovers from the Dayton peace treaty that ended the 1992-95 war by dividing Bosnia into two highly autonomous regions, the Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat federation.

"Silajdzic has agreed with nearly all proposals contained in the document... while Milorad Dodik dismissed all these proposals without exception," said a statement from Silajdzic's office.

Talks were expected to continue until late on Thursday.

The U.S., a major backer of Bosnia's fragile democracy, has tried to intervene before, with no success.

A U.S.-sponsored constitutional reform package failed to win parliament approval last year mainly due to lack of support from Silajdzic's party, that refused to back it because it allowed the two regions significant voting powers.

Silajdzic has said that regional voting should be annulled because it would cement ethnic divisions in the Balkan country.

Vexed by the setback, the Serb Republic authorities in turn refused to unify their regional police with that of the Muslim-Croat federation, another key EU condition for closer ties with Bosnia.

The U.S. has now revisited the constitutional reform plan and offered to water down regions' voting powers to please the Bosnian Muslim side.

But Dodik immediately dismissed any change to the current status, saying it was a mechanism of protection so that no region could be outvoted in parliament.

"The annulment of the regional voting cannot be accepted," he said in a statement, "nor can the police reform be accepted without a clear positioning of the Republika Srpska police in that structure."

Dodik said he was ready to compromise on police reform, but insisted the Serb Republic's police should remain the main security organ in the region even after it has become part of a future unified state force.

Silajdzic wants the Serb Republic police to be renamed, instead of keeping the name used by its wartime incarnation, when some of its officers were involved in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslims.