Belgrade DMH 281013

LOCAL PRESS

Djuric: Announced arrest of Vulin – provocation (RTS)

Serbian presidential advisor Marko Djuric has assessed that Pristina’s announcement of the intent to arrest Serbian Minister in charge of Kosovo and Metohija Aleksandar Vulin is a provocation that aims to intimidate the Serbs from turning out for the upcoming local elections. Pristina has assessed it will be too great and significant step for the Serbs if they win the majority in 10 municipalities. That is why many in Pristina are pondering the future of solving the status of Kosovo once the Serb institutions are fully legitimate through the election process, Djuric explained.

Pantic: If election material is not neutral in status, Serbs won’t turn out for elections (Tanjug)

A candidate for the mayor of northern Kosovska Mitrovica Krstimir Pantic has stated he will call upon the citizens to boycott the elections on 3 November unless the status neutral election material is provided by then. He said he would insist that all those states that have representation offices in Pristina, and especially the countries of the Quint, to exert influence on Pristina to make the election material status neutral. Otherwise, we will invite the citizens to refrain from approaching the elections, and then the responsibility for the failure will be solely on the international community that does not uphold what was agreed in Brussels, Pantic pointed. He has reminded that the agreement from Brussels entails the status neutral nature of all election material, but in the field Pristina does not give up on featuring the logo and crest of the so-called “republic of Kosovo” on the election material.

Office for Kosovo: Arrests intimidating Kosovo Serbs (Novosti)

The Kosovo police have taken into custody Zivoje Balosevic, an employee of the Vitina municipality, which operates within the system of municipalities of the Republic of Serbia, the Office for Kosovo and Metohija said in a statement. It is stressed that the situation in the province is monitored with great concern and daily attacks on the Serbs are severely condemned. The reason for this arrest is unknown, but it is not hard to conclude that at issue is intimidation and harassment of the Serbs, all done on a daily basis with the goal to make them give up on voting at the local elections, the Office states, while reminding that Srecko Spasic, a candidate for the mayor of the Klokot municipality, was arrested the previous day for the same reason, after being physically attacked recently. Naturally, the attacker has not been found to this day, reads the statement. If we add to these senseless attacks the fact that the interim authorities in Prisitna have issued the arrest warrant after Serbian Minister Aleksandar Vulin, it is then clear that under way is brutal pressure to instill fear into the Serbs, the Office stresses.

Petkovic: Disgraceful silence reigns in Constitutional Court (RTS)

The spokesperson of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) Petar Petkovic has stated that the Constitutional Court of Serbia is siding with the government as it has not said anything about the DSS proposals to reconsider the constitionality of the Brussels agreement between Belgrade and Pristina. Petkovic said that the President of the Constitutional Court Dragisa Slijepcevic should resign as he acts as the government’s marionette. “Instead of doing its job, the Court will remain silent until the local elections in Kosovo and Metohija end that is until all agreements reached in Brussels are put in practice,” Petkovic said at a press conference. He said that Slijepcevic’s explanation that the Court had only a temporary break in the process of assessment of the Brussels agreements is an offence for the legal profession and the legal order of the country.

 

REGIONAL PRESS

Inzko: Overcome the standstill (Glas Srpske)

The High Representative in B&H Valentin Inzko has stated that B&H can depart the present political standstill if the international community continues to be engaged in the country and if the local politicians actively search for a compromise and solution. “We need to constantly encourage dialogue among parties so B&H can progress and not lag behind the rest of the region in the Euro-Atlantic integration process,” Inzko said in talks with Hungarian Foreign Minister Janos Martony. Inzko thanked the Hungarian Foreign Minister, whose country is presently presiding over the Visegrad Group, for the contribution his country is giving to peace and stability in B&H by way of the troops within EUFOR, as well as Hungary’s devotion for B&H, the Office of the High Representative said in a statement.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Davutoglu says Erdogan’s Kosovo remarks misunderstood in Serbia (Trend AZ, 28 October 2013)

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said remarks made by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Kosovo were misunderstood in Serbia, adding that Turkey has the same relationship with all Balkan states Today`s Zaman reported.

Davutoglu said Erdogan's remarks on Kosovo were taken out of context by some nationalist circles in Serbia and thus misinterpreted, in what was the first official response to Serbia's reprimand of Turkey.

During an address in Prizren on Wednesday, Erdogan said: "Do not forget that Kosovo is Turkey and Turkey is Kosovo," as he made the "Rabia" hand sign that has become synonymous with the anti-coup protests in Egypt.

Reactions to the prime minister's remarks in Kosovo mounted on Saturday, with the Serbian president seeking an apology from Erdogan for what he called the "scandalous" remarks.

"Turkey targets developing good relations with Serbia and has the same relationship with the rest of the Balkans. Prime Minister Erdogan talked about the shared fate of people of the Balkans in his speech. Balkan countries should act together for peace and stability," said Davutoglu during a televised interview on TRT 1 on Sunday as he responded to criticism from Serbia.

Noting that he had a phone conversation with his Serbian counterpart, Ivan Mrkic, on Sunday morning, Davutoglu said they comprehensively discussed Erdogan's speeches in Prizren and Prishtine.

"I told my dear friend [Mrkic] that when we come to Belgrade we also call it our second home. Belgrade, Prizren and Prishtine are cities that we love very much. Some speeches might be presented as sources of [a diplomatic] crisis when they are taken out of context, but we have enough experience to overcome [such crises]. Both Serbia and Turkey are aware of their difference of opinion on the issue of Kosovo, but both sides are continuing their relations by accepting this difference," said Davutoglu.

"Turkey never uses such expansionist, nostalgic language. However, we use the warmest expressions to describe our closeness [to the Balkan states]. Our prime minister also used this language to describe our closeness," the Turkish foreign minister added.

Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic announced on Saturday that in protest over Erdogan's remarks he was freezing his attendance at the trilateral meetings between Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Turkey, a mechanism established in October 2009 as part of a Turkish initiative aiming to assess developments related to the Balkan countries.

Nikolic added that the trilateral meetings were not the meetings of "warmongering countries but of democratic countries guided by stately wisdom bringing about peace in the Balkans."

"The scandal made by the Turkish prime minister in Prizren town is a flagrant and brutal violation of the good and friendly relations, by disregarding and encroaching upon the sovereignty of Serbia and by revising history," said Nikolic in a statement published on his official website, and added: "The ideas of [the founder of modern Turkey] Kemal Atatürk are no longer the ideas of the leadership of Turkey."

Turkey was one of the first countries to officially recognize Kosovo's independence from Serbia in early 2008, and some 90 other countries, including the US and 23 EU member countries, now also recognize the country's independence. Serbia refuses to recognize Kosovo's independence, considering Kosovo the cradle of Serb culture.

Stating that he expects common sense to prevail in Turkey, Nikolic said he expected an apology for what he called "this armless aggression" from Turkey.

Responding to Nikolic's decision to pull out of the trilateral mechanism, Davutoglu said Turkey attached importance to relations with Serbia and also supported the "dialogue between Prizren and Belgrade."

Turkey's ambassador to Belgrade summoned to Serbian Foreign Ministry

Diplomatic sources who talked to Today's Zaman said that the Serbian Foreign Ministry summoned Turkey's ambassador to Belgrade, Mehmet Kemal Bozay, on Saturday to express its discomfort about remarks that had appeared in the media. Serbian officials told Bozay that Erdogan's remarks were "unacceptable," and that they expected an "urgent explanation and apology" from the Turkish side.

Nikolic recalled in the statement that he had made an effort to turn Serbian-Turkish relations into a "sincere friendship" during his presidency.

"All the time I have drawn the attention of the Turkish president [Abdullah Gül] that it was at least impolite of the Turkish officials to ask the other countries to recognize 'then independence' of Kosovo," the Serbian president said.

In Kosovo, Erdogan had also said that Turkey would continue to back Kosovo's efforts for recognition from additional countries while recalling Turkey's support for Kosovo during the process of achieving recognition from other states.

"Never forget that all of us are people of a shared history, culture and civilization; we are brothers and relatives to each other," Erdogan had further noted in Kosovo.

The first reaction to Erdogan over his Kosovo remarks came from the Serbian Foreign Ministry on Friday, which said in a statement that such remarks cannot be received as "friendly" in Serbia. "They depart from assurances that we get in contacts with Turkey's top officials," the statement added, state news agency TANJUG reported.

"The town of Emperor Dusan [the greatest ruler of medieval Serbia] is probably the least appropriate place for such statements. Everyone in the world knows that Kosovo is a Serbian word and Serbia's territory, even those who have recognized that quasi-state," the Foreign Ministry statement added. 

...and now, with Serbia, too (Today’s Zaman, by Yavuz Baydar, 27 October 2013)

Imagine if Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras goes to Nicosia and declares that “Cyprus is Greece, Greece is Cyprus!”

Or, imagine if Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan, while visiting Nagorno-Karabakh, announces enthusiastically that “Armenia is Nagorno-Karabakh and Nagorno-Karabakh is Armenia!”

This is more or less what Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan did in Kosovo. Having landed in Prizren, he said: “We all belong to a common history, common culture, common civilization; we are the people who are brethren of that structure. Do not forget, Turkey is Kosovo, Kosovo is Turkey!” He added that he “feels at home” when he visits Kosovo.

Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dačić told reporters that Erdoğan's statement represented "a direct provocation aimed at Serbia," and that "something of that kind should not be happening."

The Serbian government said, “Such statements dealt direct harm to relations between Serbia and Turkey.” Belgrade expressed its wish that the European Union will "via its relevant organs, and also in the capitals of all member countries" undertake appropriate measures toward Turkey, as is customary in similar situations -- considering that it was "an act that disturbed the peace process in the southern Serbian province.”

"In the Republic of Serbia, such statements cannot be received as friendly. They depart from the assurances we get from our contacts with Turkey's top officials,” said the Serbian Foreign Ministry.

There were angry demonstrations in Belgrade, with nationalists shouting “Kosovo is Serbia.” Sentiments even spilled over into Austria where the leader of the extreme-right Freedom Party (FPO), Heinz Christian Strache, countered that “Turkey is not Kosovo, Kosovo is not Turkey,” adding: “We fought for this several centuries ago, and it will always remain like this. First, Erdoğan undermined European societies with a mass of its citizens, whom he calls 'his soldiers,' and now he openly expresses territorial pretensions in a sovereign European country -- Serbia. This is absolutely unacceptable.”

The crisis has now reached the point of a big chill between Ankara and Belgrade. Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic said he was pulling out of the trilateral talks between Serbia, Turkey and Bosnia and Herzegovina. "I expect that reason will prevail in Turkey and Turkey will apologize to Serbia over this aggression without arms," he said.

"Until then, as president of Serbia, I am freezing my participation at the trilateral meeting between Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Turkey, because that is not a meeting of war rumbling but of democratic countries with statesmanly reason that leads to peace in the Balkans," he added.

What is all this about? Storm in a teacup? Actually, there was nothing wrong with the first part of Erdoğan's statement -- the one about common this or that -- but the second part is like sticking a knife into an open wound in Balkan history and Serbian national identity. Kosovo is at the center of it, based on the infamous war between the Ottomans and Serbs in 1389. It is seen by Serbs as the “motherland.” It is also where Slobodan Milosevic, a former Serbian president, made the famous speech that started the bloody Balkan wars in the early 1990s.

Wisdom says, therefore, Kosovo is Kosovo.

Whether read from a written text or ad-libbed, this incident only adds another element to the conviction that the primary enemy of Turkish foreign policy is tactlessness in rhetoric, fed by a delusion of grandeur.

The subject is always the same.

The ill consequences are spreading to a larger geography in Turkey's vicinity -- the Middle East, the Caucasus and the Balkans -- rapidly wasting its chances as a benevolent, influential, trusted, impartial, fair modern power.

The crisis with Serbia only adds to the big troubles of whatever remains of the “zero problem neighborhood” of Ankara. The phrase about Kosovo has caused huge damage to the good efforts of President Abdullah Gül and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu to restore ties with Serbia since 2009. It is back to square one.

Has it at all helped what remains of the reputation of Erdoğan's once-fine initiative on the Alliance of Civilizations? Absolutely not.

And it only gets worse.

Western Balkans and Turkey: new opportunities for EU enlargement, by Linas Linkevicius and Stefan Füle* (Today’s Zaman, 25 October 2013)

A few months ago the European Union grew again. Croatia became the 28th member state. This new enlargement showed once again that the EU project does not stop, nor slow down. It also underlined the credibility of the enlargement policy under which countries are admitted after they deliver on the necessary criteria. The agenda of the Lithuanian presidency in this semester is good proof of the determination to keep this policy going.

Despite different dynamics in the enlargement countries, we could register very positive developments. The historic agreement between Serbia and Kosovo is of crucial importance since it contributes to the overall stability of the region and ensures that both Serbia and Kosovo can proceed on their respective European paths. It is also probably the most striking recent example of the transformative power of the EU accession process and a clear signal that even the most difficult decisions can be made if there is strong motivation and political will. After a groundbreaking agreement on the normalization of relations, both parties now meet regularly under the aegis of the EU to solve outstanding practical issues to the benefit of citizens on both sides. And the EU started the screening process of the first two very important chapters with Serbia in September and is getting ready to launch negotiations on a Stabilization and Association Agreement with Kosovo on Oct. 28. However, a recent attack on the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) staff, whose perpetrators we expect to be swiftly brought to justice, also shows how much EU engagement is needed.

The negotiation process with Montenegro gained new momentum and two important negotiating chapters in the accession process may be opened in the coming months.

We are also making efforts to get the accession negotiations with Turkey back on track and the forthcoming opening of a new negotiating chapter (on Nov. 5) is a result of these efforts, with our hope that more chapters will follow.

Albania ensured much-improved democratic conduct during the recent elections and a peaceful transition of power, advancing its chances of getting candidate status.

To sustain momentum for reforms, we have continued high-level dialogues with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Of course, EU accession does not take place in a vacuum. In the current economic climate, citizens of both member states and aspirant countries are increasingly concerned about the impact of the ongoing enlargement. And the management of the enlargement process itself reflects these concerns. The negotiation process is based on strict conditionality, where each step forward is dependent on tangible progress achieved on the ground. It is not about ticking boxes in checklists but about creating a solid track record in areas such as fundamental rights and freedoms, the rule of law, good governance and democracy. Strengthening of the rule of law, improving the ability to tackle organized crime and corruption, progress in the application of human rights and democratic standards, and freedoms bring direct benefits to citizens across Europe.

Enlargement is a success story of the EU, reflected also by the recent Nobel Peace Prize. However, if we want to be both serious and realistic, we should not be tempted to paint an unrealistically rosy picture. The examples mentioned earlier demonstrate that progress is possible when there is a political will to focus on reforms and when the EU agenda is considered a national priority. We are well aware of the fact that not everywhere in the region, and not in all areas, do reforms move ahead at the desired speed. Much more needs to be done, but this should not discourage the EU enlargement process, which has huge transformative leverage. The threat here is not enlargement as such, but rather reform fatigue.

The opportunities to move decisively forward on the path to European integration are clearly visible and equally open to all aspiring countries. It is up to these countries to make these opportunities a reality to the benefit of their citizens, as Croatia did. We remain fully committed to supporting them along the way, knowing that this is as much about our joint success as it is about the credibility of enlargement as one of the key policies of the EU.

*Linas Linkevicius is the Lithuanian minister of foreign affairs. Stefan Füle is the EU commissioner for enlargement.

Serbia’s Rating Kept at Junk by S&P With Negative Outlook (Bloomberg, by Gordana Filipovic, 25 October 2013)

Serbia’s non-investment credit rating was affirmed and kept on negative outlook by Standard & Poor’s, which said the Balkan nation faces potential external financing challenges.

S&P left Serbia’s long- and short-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings at BB-/B, saying economic growth potential is outweighed by concern that large parts of the economy remain in recession, which can drive up the fiscal deficit and public debt, the ratings company said in a statement today.

“The ratings on Serbia are constrained by our view of the potential fiscal and external financing challenges that the country faces in light of its high fiscal and external deficits,” as well as “moderate gross domestic product per capita and limited monetary policy flexibility,” S&P said in the statement.

Prime Minister Ivica Dacic, who shuffled his Cabinet in September, has pledged to raise taxes, push back the retirement age for women, crack down on the shadow economy and cut subsidies to state-owned companies to halt an increase in public debt by 2016.

Yields on Serbian 10-year Eurobonds maturing in 2021 rose 4 basis points, or 0.04 percentage point, to 6.177 percent by 6:08 p.m. in Belgrade. The dinar was little changed, trading at 114.0720 per euro, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Growth Impact

The measures are “unlikely to stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio in the near term, particularly given their likely contractionary impact on economic growth,” S&P said.

The negative outlook reflects at least a one-in-three chance that S&P could downgrade Serbia in the first half of next year. Key risks are if the government fails to implement fiscal consolidation measures and curb public debt, if borrowing costs rise, or if growth falters, S&P said.

Serbia’s Finance Ministry said it expected “with energetic implementation” of budget consolidation measures, a credit upgrade will be come in the future.

“In that context the affirmed credit rating by Standard & Poor’s today, despite the risks, is seen as a turning point along that path,” the ministry said in an e-mail.

Serbia wants to reassure investors it can rein in a fiscal gap the government estimates may reach 6.5 percent of annual output this year. It is also trying to secure a precautionary credit line from the International Monetary Fund, which refused loan talks in May when Serbia already fell short of its budget commitments.

Serbia’s Payout to Tortured Albanians Challenged (BIRN, by Marija Ristic, 28 October 2013)

A rights group has appealed against a Belgrade court’s award of 2,100 euro to two Kosovo Albanians who were beaten in jail by Serbian police, saying the amount was offensively small.

The Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Centre, which is representing war victims in compensation cases, appealed on Friday against the decision to award a total of 2,100 euro to Jahir Krasniqi and Jakup Tahiri, who were illegally imprisoned and tortured in Serbia in 1999.

On October 4, the Belgrade basic court ruled that Krasniqi was illegally imprisoned from May 18, 1999, for more than four months, and was tortured by Serbian police in jails in the towns of Lipljan and Sremska Mitrovica.

The court also ruled that Tahiri was illegally arrested on May 29, 1999, and spent 15 months in prisons in towns of Lipljan and Pozerevac, where he was beaten and tortured.

The Serbian state was ordered to pay 140,000 dinars (1,400 euro) to Krasniqi and 70,000 dinars (700 euro) to Tahiri.

But the Humanitarian Law Centre said that this was one of the lowest amounts that Serbian courts had ever ordered to be paid in compensation to war victims.

“With this verdict the court is trying to minimise the responsibility of the state for the crimes for which representatives of the state institutions are responsible,” the rights group said in the appeal.

Krasniqi was arrested in May 1999 during the war in Kosovo and transferred together with 25 other Albanian men to a police station in town of Glogovac, then to a prison in town of Lipljan where he was placed in inhumane conditions together with 350 other prisoners, who were regularly beaten by police.

According to Krasniqi he was sleeping on the floor, without water, and only given a piece of bread to eat once a day.  He was transferred to a jail the north-western town of Sremska Mitrovica the next month, and was finally released in October 1999.

Tahiri, who was taken from his village in May 1999, was also placed in the same prison in Lipljan. A month after his arrest, he was transferred to the Serbian town of Pozeravac, where he was beaten regularly by the guards. He was released in April 2000 after the intervention of International Committee of the Red Cross.

The two men filed a lawsuit against Serbia in 2010 with the assistance of the Humanitarian Law Centre.

Bosnian activists erect ‘guerilla memorials’ to war crimes victims (Reuters, by Daria Sito-Sucic, 26 October 2013)

SARAJEVO - Bosnian activists put up "guerrilla memorials" overnight to Serbs, Muslims and Croats killed in the 1992-95 war, in protest at the denial of war crimes by authorities in the Balkan country.
In a synchronized action, they erected identical marble plaques in three towns across Bosnia in the early hours of Saturday.

The memorials in the southeastern town of Foca, the central town of Bugojno and the southern town of Konjic all bore the text: "So that it never happens again. In memory of the victims of war crimes committed in the area of (Foca, Bugojno or Konjic)."
When Bosnia tried to become independent of Yugoslavia in 1992, Bosnian Serbs launched a separatist war with the backing of the Yugoslav government in Belgrade.
Serbs fought Muslims (also known as Bosniaks) and Croats. Muslims and Croats were at war with each other later in the conflict.
In Serb-run Foca, local authorities have never allowed for a memorial to be raised for more than 1,600 Bosniaks who went missing after Serb forces overran the town in spring 1992. Many were later found in nearby mass graves.
There are no official memorials to the Croat civilians detained and killed by Muslim forces in Bugojno, nor for Serb men, women and children killed by joint Muslim-Croat forces in Konjic.
The 70 kg (150 pound) plaque in Foca was cemented to the pavement outside a sports center where hundreds of Muslim women were enslaved and raped by Serbs.
Others were fixed in place in pedestrian areas of Bugojno and Konjic - but only with glue, said activists, because they did not have time to cement them in during the night raids.
"COLLECTIVE AMNESIA"
"These memorials were raised by the people," said an activist of the group "Because It Concerns Me", whose members belong to different ethnic groups and come from across Bosnia.
"They (the authorities) can remove or destroy them but we shall put up new ones again. We'll show to nationalist elites that their attempt at collective amnesia isn't working."
Nearly two decades after the war, in which around 100,000 people were killed, Bosnia is a single state but deeply divided between its three ethnic groups and floundering on the edge of the European mainstream it wants to join.
A large memorial has been built, following international pressure, to victims of the biggest single atrocity of the war - the massacre of 8,000 Muslims by Serb forces in and around Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia.
But local authorities have in the past dismantled memorials created by unofficial groups.
Activists chose Foca, Bugojno and Konjic because the U.N. war crimes tribunal has issued verdicts relating to war crimes in all three. Bosnia's war crimes court has jailed several people for the killings in Bugojno and Konjic.
"We want to shame our politicians and the international community," said the activist.
"It is inconceivable that 20 years after the war they have not created memorials nor allowed the commemorations of the crimes and victims," said the man, who declined to identify himself by name.
(Editing by Andrew Roche)

Large mass grave found in Bosnia, mostly Muslims (Ahlul Bayt News Agency, 26 October 2013)

A large mass grave, believed to hold the ethnic cleansing victims of Srebrenica massacre during the 1995-1992 war, has been found in Bosnia, officials say.
According to Bosnia's Institute for Missing Persons the mass grave was discovered in the village of Tomasica near the town of Prijedor.
The Tomasica tomb was known for years, but the exact venue and details of the victims were known only to local Serb witnesses.
Finally local witnesses, some of them former separatist Bosnian Serb fighters, admitted the location.
Lejla Cengic, spokeswoman for the Missing Persons Institute, said they now know more about the identities of those killed.
“Bodies were found piled up ten meters under the ground’s surface. Some identification documents were found next to bodies so now we can say that victims were residents of villages of Biscana, Sjenica, Rizvanovica and Carapova,” said Cengic.
Most of the victims are believed to be Bosnian Muslims, or Bosniaks, and Croats killed by Bosnian Serb forces in one of the worst ethnic cleansing campaigns.
The forensic workers said the victims were all shot dead.
On Tuesday, the remains of 18 people, including men, women and children, were unearthed from the 3,000-square-meters grave.
Witnesses say around 1,000 bodies were buried at the site originally but there are indications that some were later dug up and moved elsewhere.
Cengic said that Tomasica, which is one of almost 100 mass graves in Bosnia, could prove the largest single mass grave in the country. Crni Vrh in eastern Bosnia, the largest excavated so far, contained 629 bodies.
The inter-ethnic war in Bosnia left about 100,000 people, most of them Muslims, dead and more than two million people became refugees or internally displaced persons.

268 Victims’ Remains Found in Bosnia Mass Grave (BIRN, by Denis Dzidic, 24 October 2013)

The remains of the wartime victims, believed to be Bosniaks and Croats killed in 1992, have been found in the ongoing exhumation of the mass grave at the Tomasica mines near Prijedor.

The Bosnian prosecution said on Thursday that the complete remains of 200 people and the incomplete remains of 68 more, as well as some of their personal belongings, had been found at a depth of ten metres in the mass grave, more than 20 years after they died.

The victims are believed to have been killed by Bosnian Serb forces in 1992. The mass grave was only found after a tip-off from a former Bosnian Serb soldier, and exhumations began in August.

“We are currently digging out bodies at various depths of the pit. Most of the exhumations are being carried out at three micro-locations several metres from each other, whose depth is ten metres,” the prosecution said in a statement.

“In the meantime, another two micro-locations have been discovered, and exhumations will start there soon too, which is why it is assumed that the total number of mortal remains to be found at this site could be bigger,” it said.

The remains found so far have been moved to the Sejkovaca Identification Centre in Sanski Most, where forensic examination and identification will be carried out.

The Hague Tribunal and the Bosnian state court have handed down several verdicts for crimes against Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats in Prijedor. Former Bosnian Serb military and civilian leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic are on trial for genocide in Prijedor in 1992.

Turkish Deputy PM visits Bosnia and Herzegovina (World Bulletin, 25 October 2013)

Arinc visits Turkish Hamam, Sultan Fatih's mosque and grave of Isa bey Ishakovic, founder of Sarajevo.

Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey Bulent Arinc met on Friday with the head of the Islamic community in Bosnia and Herzegovina Husein Kavazovic.
Arinc said he arrived in Bosnia to support Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA) projects in the country.

Kavazovic expressed hopes of seeing Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the official opening of TIKA projects in Bosnia.

Before visiting the head of the Islamic community, Arinc visited Turkish Hamam Isa bey Ishakovic in Sarajevo, which is currently under the reconstruction by Turkish contractor company Erbu with funds from Turkey's Endowments Authority.

Arinc also visited Sultan Fatih's mosque in Sarajevo and the mosque yard grave of Isa Bey Ishakovic, founder of Sarajevo.

Earlier on Friday, Arinc visited the new Turkish Embassy in the Bosnian capital accompained by Turkish ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina Ahmet Yildiz.

Arinc then visited the historic Mostar (Herzegovina) city.

Unity does the ultimate trick (Reuters, 27 October 2013)

By qualifying for the World Cup, Bosnian team has shown a point or two to the country’s politicians.
Bosnia's international footballers have offered their political leaders a valuable lesson: see what you can achieve when you set aside your ethnic divisions.
A few days back, the national soccer side won a place at the World Cup finals for the first time, two years after Bosnia was briefly suspended from international competition for letting ethnic politics pervade the sport.

Under a reformed soccer federation, Bosnia automatically qualified for Brazil next year on the same night as some much bigger names in the European game — Spain, England and Russia — made it.
Bosnians let off fireworks and honked car horns long into the night in Sarajevo when their team qualified, embracing a moment of joy after the horrors of a war that pitted Muslims, Croats and Serbs against each other in the early 1990s.
The victory mattered all the more because the team is a beacon of progress and unity in a country still divided between ethnic groups, mired in corruption and quarrels, and floundering on the edge of the European mainstream it wants to join.
"My message today to Bosnian politicians is: follow the example of your footballers and live up to expectations of your citizens," said European Union enlargement chief Stefan Fule the day after Bosnia qualified for the World Cup finals.
Nearly two decades after the civil war in which around 100,000 people were killed, the former Yugoslav republic's problem is not so much that the ethnic groups don't get along. A system created by the 1995 treaty that ended the war, giving each of the three ethnic groups a share of power and rotating important posts between them, has kept the peace.
Bosnia's main problem is that this system breeds sleaze, the protecting of vested interests and paralysed decision-making. But while the politicians are still stuck in their old ways, the soccer team has shaken off the system and achieved the qualification, sealed by a victory over Lithuania.
Two years ago, Bosnia's NFSBiH soccer federation mirrored the way the state is organised.
Its presidency was run by a Serb, a Croat and a Muslim who took turns in the job every 16 months, in much the same way that the state presidency works. The system, say people involved in the sport, was dysfunctional. Officials were chosen on ethnic and political grounds rather than on competence.
Crucial decisions were fumbled. One example was the missed opportunity to recruit Zlatan Ibrahimovic, one of Europe's top stars who now plays for French side Paris Saint-Germain. Near the start of his career, his Bosnian-born father said he wanted Zlatan to play for the national side. No one from the federation pursued the possibility, former officials and local media say, and now the striker captains Sweden, the country of his birth.
The Bosnian federation was on the verge of bankruptcy. Three former officials, one of them an ex-commander of the Muslim-dominated Bosnian army during the war, were jailed last year for  tax evasion and embezzlement.
Many foreign-based players and devoted soccer fans boycotted the national team, angry at political interference which they said was spoiling otherwise harmonious relations among players and coaches.
The world and European governing bodies, FIFA and UEFA demanded the federation should have a single chief. "We were in an abyss only two years ago," said NFSBiH President Elvedin Begic, who was appointed to the job in December last year.
The turning point came in 2011. With no sign of any progress, FIFA and UEFA briefly suspended Bosnia from competitions in April of that year. Stung by this, ethnic leaders agreed to reform the federation's set-up. A FIFA-appointed interim committee made up of soccer professionals of all ethnicities took over from the suspended federation. It was headed by Ivica Osim, who as a player led the former Yugoslavia to the World Cup quarterfinals in 1990. A Sarajevo-born Bosnian Croat, he is married to a Muslim.
Osim signalled how things had changed last year, when matches between Bosnian clubs were marred by violence between fans from Sarajevo and the Serb-dominated city of Banja Luka. In an act of candour unprecedented in Bosnian soccer, he said sectarian politics was behind the violence, and this had no place in sport. He banned visiting fans from the stadiums.
Last December, the federation's assembly elected its first single president for a four-year term and appointed a 15-member executive committee, comprising officials from Bosnia's two autonomous regions, the Federation of Muslim Bosniaks and Croats and the Serb Republic.
"We now have a national team which is not based on the grounds of who is who, but who is the best," Osim, who advises the new soccer federation, said last week. "If only politicians were as cohesive as this team."
Ethnic suspicions linger. Most of Bosnia's ethnic Serbs have traditionally supported the Serbian national team and many Bosnian Croats cheer for Croatia — although this may be changing thanks to Bosnia's success. In the Serb Republic, the Serb-dominated autonomous part of Bosnia, public television did not broadcast the match against Lithuania and reported the result only hours later, as a short news item.
"Football cannot reconcile the citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina, football cannot make them more tolerant because football was not an issue. Politicians are those who must do it," said Srdjan Puhalo, a psychologist from Banja Luka, main city in the Serb Republic.
Brussels has made reforming Bosnia's ethnically-based political system a condition of starting talks on EU accession. So far, the politicians are reluctant to change a set-up that serves their interests.
Yet at a grass-roots level, the example set by the multi-ethnic soccer team is helping heal some of Bosnia's divisions. Sasa Zivkovic, a graphic worker from Banja Luka, watched the Bosnia-Lithuania match at home with friends by tuning into a Bosnian commercial station that carried it.
Zivkovic said many other people in the city cheered on the Bosnian team, though they don't admit it because of "strong antagonism" towards anything connected to the Bosnian state. "But people like winners, and Bosnia's football team is a winning team, so I think that many things will change," he said.

Serbia buries Tito's widow, the last symbol of Yugoslavia (The News International, 26 October 2013)

BELGRADE: The widow of the former Yugoslav leader Tito will be buried in a Belgrade mausoleum on Saturday with full state honours as the last symbol of the communist federation that broke up in the 1990s.

Jovanka Broz, who died of heart failure at the age of 88 on Sunday, will be buried next to her husband Josip Broz in the House of Flowers, where the communist strongman was laid to rest in 1980.

Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic will give a speech at the funeral, to be held with full military honours as Broz was a decorated member of the Yugoslav anti-fascist partisan movement in World War II, the government said.

Ordinary citizens will also be paying their respects after the funeral, it added. Once a symbol of elegance and adored among the Yugoslav, Broz lived the last three decades of her life as an outcast.

Blamed by Tito's political friends of plotting a coup, she was placed under virtual house arrest a few years before her husband's death.

Her last public appearance was at Tito's state funeral in May 1980, attended by more than 200 top world dignitaries, among them Margaret Thatcher, Saddam Hussein and Leonid Brezhnev.

After Tito's death Jovanka Broz was forced to leave the former Serbian royal palace where the couple lived in splendour, and spent the following years in isolation and poverty.

"They chased me out ... in my nightgown, without anything, not allowing me even to take a photo of the two of us, or a letter, a book," Broz said in a rare interview in 2009.

Since then, "I was in isolation and treated like a criminal... I could not leave the house without armed guards," she told the Politika daily.

Her identity papers were confiscated and only returned by Serbian authorities in 2009, when she was given a pension.

Broz, who was Tito's third wife, met the charismatic communist leader after she had joined the partisans at the age of 17.

She remained in the trenches until the end of World War II, attaining the rank of captain. As Yugoslavia began turning its back on its wartime ally Russia, then under Stalin's rule, Broz was hired as Tito's secretary in 1948.

The date of their marriage remains unclear, as are most details of Tito's private life. Some biographers set it in 1952.

Tito was 31 years her senior and the couple had no children. With her voluminous raven black hair always swept up in a bun, Broz quickly became a symbol of elegance in a country impoverished by the war, with communist leaders focused on strengthening the new Yugoslav state.

Often described as the "first lady of the Non-Aligned Movement" -- a group of states advocating a middle course for developing countries between the Eastern and Western bloc, founded by Tito and the leaders of India, Indonesia, Ghana and Egypt -- she toured the world with her husband.

Broz and Tito were both film buffs, dining with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, among other international movie stars filming in Yugoslavia in the 1960s.

Broz rarely spoke in public, seemingly satisfied with being a silent first lady, inseparable from her husband during his frequent jaunts, often sailing to their summer residence on the island of Brijuni aboard the official yacht.

She and other Tito heirs initiated an inheritance procedure, although the size of his estate has never been made public and the claims are still pending.