Bosnian Foreign Minister and Social Democratic Party president Zlatko Lagumdzija said on Monday he did not attend today's working lunch with Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic because his first official visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina was "too nationally coloured."
"BiH is not a simple sum of three ethnic groups. BiH consists not only of three constituent peoples but also of four million citizens and there was too much rhetoric to my liking today about peoples and not much about man," Lagumdzija said in Sarajevo in response to questions about his missing the lunch with Milanovic.
Lagumdzija's close party associate and PM of Bosnia's Federation entity, Nermin Niksic, also did not attend the lunch.
Lagumdzija said he was nonetheless glad that the "issue of Croatia's interference in BiH's internal affairs was taken off the agenda" of the talks Milanovic held in Sarajevo.
He recalled some media's claims ahead of Milanovic's arrival that he planned to initiate a reshuffle of the Federation government so that the HDZ BiH and HDZ 1990 parties would become part of it. Milanovic resolutely dismissed such claims upon arriving in Bosnia.
Lagumdzija welcomed Milanovic's statement that he came to Bosnia to talk and listen, and not as a mentor. "I was impressed by his statement that it did not cross his mind to interfere in a Federation government reshuffle."
Commenting on the fact that Lagumdzija and Niksic did not attend today's lunch, Milanovic said he remained willing to receive them in Zagreb, "if I'm there" when they came.
