EU Backs Austrian For Top Bosnian Post-EU Sources

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said the bloc`s foreign ministers agreed internally on a name at a meeting in Brussels.

The European Union backed Austrian diplomat Valentin Inzko on Monday as Bosnia's new EU and international high representative, pending approval by other members of the country's peace council, diplomats said.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said the bloc's foreign ministers agreed internally on a name at a meeting in Brussels, but he did not reveal it.

"The agreement among ourselves is already done," he told a news conference.

"What we have to do is to exchange with the other members of the PIC," he said, referring to Bosnia's international Peace Implementation Council, which apart from the European Union includes the United States, Russia and Turkey.

"That started already, by tomorrow that will be done," Solana said.

An EU diplomat and another EU source said Inzko, who has served as Austria's ambassador to Slovenia, was named by ministers.

The post of international high representative, who can impose laws and sack officials seen as undermining the Dayton peace agreement that ended the 1992-95 Bosnian war, was held by Slovak diplomat Miroslav Lajcak. He was named as his country's foreign minister last month.

Bosnia is made up of two autonomous regions, the Muslim-Croat federation and the Serb Republic. The Muslims and Croats aspire to have a stronger state while the Serbs want to keep a high level of autonomy in their region.

Local media said Britain considered nominating diplomat Emyr Jones Perry as the new Bosnia envoy but Russia was against it.

Last week, the government of Bosnia's Serb Republic said it would not accept a British diplomat in the post.

The Bosnian Serbs see Britons as biased against Serbs after British diplomat Paddy Ashdown, who had served as international high representative in Bosnia from 2002-2005, sacked a number of Serb officials and took measures to strengthen the state.