Top peace envoy acts against Bosnian Serbs

By Gordana Katana

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia (Reuters) - Bosnia's top peace envoy said on Saturday he had annulled a Bosnian Serb parliament resolution that would have required its institutions and officials to oppose any future transfer of power to the state.

The High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina supervises the Dayton peace accord and is empowered to sack officials seen as obstructing the 1995 agreement. He is also the supreme authority on interpreting the constitution.

"The High Representative (HR) made a detailed legal assessment and concluded the issued conclusions are mainly not in line with the Dayton agreement," Valentin Inzko said in a statement referring to his actions.

Under the Dayton accord that ended Bosnia's 1992-95 war, the country was made into two autonomous regions -- the Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat federation -- with a weak central government whose workings are often hijacked by ethnic and regional rivalry.

Inzko's move came after a meeting with Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik and parliament speaker Igor Radojicic.

"Inzko's decision is contrary to modern democratic practices and is designed to suspend basic human and democratic freedoms," Dodik's office said in a statement.

The region's parliament had turned a deaf ear to Inzko's call to withdraw its June resolution that included a list of powers, such as judiciary, customs and foreign trade policy and police deployment, that Bosnian Serbs believe should belong to their region.

Inzko said the resolutions passed by the Bosnian Serb parliament would give the assembly veto rights at a state level and "undermine final and binding decisions of the Constitutional court, a Dayton institution". He added the resolutions would also determine that the HR's powers were unconstitutional.