The head of the House of Peoples of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Parliament, Dragan Covic, said on Wednesday that BiH Presidency Serb member Milorad Dodik was far from being the only source of problems in that country.

The international community’s High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Christian Schmidt, has described Dodik as a threat to peace and security in his report to the UN Security Council on the situation in BiH.

“I’m confident, since I know Mr Dodik well, that the situation would be resolved easily if he were the only problem, but I think the problems are much more complex and that Mr Dodik is far from being the real source of the problems,” Covic, who leads the Bosnian Croat HDZ BiH party, said in an interview with Nova TV.

High Representative Schmidt plans to warn the UN Security Council this week that the situation in BiH has become dangerously complicated.

He has said that the authorities of the Serb entity of Republika Srpska, led by BiH Presidency member Milorad Dodik, pose a constant and serious challenge to the Dayton peace agreement, the local media have reported.

Asked if he feared a military conflict in BiH, Covic said that Schmidt was possibly exaggerating the situation “but anyone normal should fear any security challenges”, adding that “one should adjust the rhetoric to European needs and efforts to resolve the situation in BiH”.

“The report states correctly that a crisis like the current one has probably not happened since the signing of the Dayton peace agreement. The rhetoric is again inflammatory, the possibility of a conflict erupting is being mentioned… but the key elements that have led to that rhetoric are disregarded and understated,” said Covic.

He said the crisis could be resolved by regulating the basic issues such as the rule of law, the rights of the Croat community, and changes to the election law.

“As regards the Croats, over the past five, six years we have been forced to fight for our survival, for the protection of our integrity, the status of a constituent people,” he said, calling for amendment of the election law.

Expressing optimism in that regard, he noted, “Bakir Izetbegovic will surely understand that he will no longer be able to elect for Croats their legitimate representatives in the House of Peoples.”

The next general elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina are scheduled for October 2022 and Covic said earlier that the biggest BiH Croat party could boycott them unless the election law is amended before that and Croats are guaranteed that they can elect their representative to the BiH Presidency and deputies to the Houses of Peoples of the national and entity parliaments on their own.