Erdogan travels to Balkans as tensions rise between former Yugoslav states
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s trip to Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia comes as ethnic rivalries bristle 30 years after the war.
ISTANBUL — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan set off on a three-day Balkans tour on Tuesday to try to mediate a crisis that threatens fresh conflict among former Yugoslav states.
Erdogan’s first stop was in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where politicians from the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska — one of two political entities that make up the country — have made calls from the enclave to run its own affairs and form an army.
Led by Milorad Dodik, the pro-Kremlin Serb member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, the country’s Serbs have complained they are marginalized by Muslim Bosniaks, who form the largest ethnic group.
Dodik’s stance has led to the paralysis of many government functions and raised fears of the breakup of Bosnia. The country has been split between a Bosniak-Croat federation and Republika Srpska since 1995, following a sectarian war that left some 100,000 dead in the wake of Yugoslavia’s collapse.
