Dec. 14 marked the 30th anniversary of the Dayton Peace Agreement, negotiated by the Clinton Administration, Russia, Croatia, and Serbia that brought an end to the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina which had been raging since the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1992.
The treaty “can be mostly credited with the fact that it stopped the bloodshed and made peaceful life possible again,” argued Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in an article for Serbian newspaper Politika posted on the Foreign Ministry website. “At the same time, Dayton came as a result of both painstaking international mediation efforts and difficult, determined compromises by the leaders of the warring sides. By making serious concessions, they gained far more—peace and hope for a prosperous future—in return. This approach, which includes achieving mutually acceptable consensus-based solutions, embodies the spirit of Dayton.”
Lavrov’s article comes against the background of current Russian-U.S. efforts to end the bloodshed in Ukraine through negotiations. He stresses throughout, that only through compromise and a tough “No, no further!” approach can you stop a horrendous, geopolitical war like both that one and the one today in Ukraine, where realities on the ground are gruesome. Russia has no intention of letting go for empty promises.
Lavrov charged, regarding the Balkan war, that the Western parties to the treaty had been working to undermine “the fundamental principles of equality among the three constituent peoples (Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats) and the two entities—Republika Srpska (R.S.) and the Federation of BiH—each enjoying broad constitutional powers.” These principles, he writes, are the basis for the sovereignty of Bosnia-Herzegovina enshrined in the treaty.
