SARAJEVO (Reuters) – The parliament of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia on Saturday named Ana Trisic Babic as interim president, officially acknowledging for the first time that former president Milorad Dodik will step aside after a state court banned him from politics.
Trisic Babic, a close ally of Dodik, will hold the position for a month until new presidential elections are held in the Serbian Republic on November 23.
Parliament also annulled a series of separatist laws passed over the past year after Dodik was accused of defying decisions by the international envoy and the constitutional court.
Dodik, a pro-Russian nationalist who wants the Serbian Republic to secede and join Serbia, had until now refused to resign and continued to serve and travel abroad as president. He is appealing the state court verdict to the constitutional court.
Dodik said that despite Saturday’s parliament vote, the Serbian Republic will not change its policies and secession remains its ultimate goal. But he had to make the decision in coordination with foreign partners, Dodik said.
The US State Department welcomed Saturday’s move, saying it was the result of US-led efforts “to defuse the crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
“The United States welcomes today’s action by the Republika Srpska National Assembly (RSNA) that affirms stability in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It will also chart a course for a constructive partnership with the United States based on mutual interests, economic potential, and shared prosperity,” Brendan Hanrahan, a senior official in the State Department’s Office of European and Eurasian Affairs, said in a statement to Reuters.
The US Treasury Department said on Friday it had removed four of Dodik’s allies from a sanctions list, in a move praised by Dodik, who has been campaigning for US sanctions against himself to be lifted.
He has been sanctioned by the United States and Britain for obstructing the terms of the Dayton peace agreement that ended the Bosnian war in the 1990s, as well as by several European countries that say his separatist policies endanger peace and stability in Bosnia.
(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Additional reporting by Daphne Psaledakis in Washington; Writing by Renee Maltezou, Editing by Franklin Paul and Sergio Non)