The US State Department -- commenting on the statement by the former US ambassador to Bulgaria, Croatia and Serbia, William Montgomery, about the inevitable disintegration of Bosnia and Herzegovina -- has reiterated strong support for the full integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina into NATO and the European Union.
When asked to comment on Montgomery's prediction of Bosnia and Herzegovina's break-up, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley did not explicitly mention Montgomery, but said that State Secretary Hillary Clinton had reaffirmed strong US support for the Euro-Atlantic integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina during her recent visit to Sarajevo.
"We've been significantly engaged with our European partners, have had many, many conversations, many trips by the Secretary, by the Deputy Secretary and others. We are trying to move Bosnia to a point where it is fully integrated, both as a country and then within Europe," Crowley told a daily press briefing in Washington on Monday.
"We have supported a process by which Bosnia has the option of joining NATO down the road, but rather than predicting its demise, we hope that Bosnia will advance and become a full participant in the European Union," he added.
Montgomery made the statement in a programme on the Sarajevo commercial television network TV1 at the weekend. He said that 15 years after the war Bosnia and Herzegovina was still a problematic country in which none of the important problems had been solved and that therefore it was realistic to think about its division. He cited as a possible solution the secession of Republika Srpska and a peaceful dissolution of the country.
