Zagreb - The equality of the Croat people in Bosnia and Herzegovina is an internal issue of that country which cannot be solved until all the three constituent peoples take over responsibility for themselves and the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia's Parliament Speaker Josip Leko said during his talks with Bosnian Croat leader Dragan Čović in Zagreb on Monday.
The status of the Croats and the implementation of the Strasbourg-based European Court's ruling on the Sejdić-Finci case regulating the participation of minorities' representatives in the electoral processes were the main topics of the talks between Leko and Čović, the president of the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HDZ BiH).
Leko was quoted as saying that the implementation of the ruling would not solve the fundamental problem of the equality of the Croat people in Bosnia and Herzegovina. "There will be no right solution as long as each of the constituent peoples (the Bosniaks, the Croats and the Serbs) are not responsible for themselves and for the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina," the Sabor Speaker said explaining that it was an internal matter of the peoples and citizens in Bosnia and Herzegovina to find a model for settling this issue.
Čović called for reorganisation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to make sure that all the three constituent peoples may be equal. "This will automatically solve the Sejdić-Finci issue," Čović added. He also acquainted Leko with preliminary results of the last census in Bosnia under which the 550,000-strong Croat community makes up a 15% of Bosnia's population.
The findings of the census also show that the Croat community saw the biggest decrease in their number compared to the other two constituent people. "The Croats have practically disappeared from the Bosnian Serb entity, and they have survived only in the areas where they have been politically organised," Čović said in his comment on the census findings. (Hina)