Bosnian Serb Hard-Liners Defy President on Cabinet Appointment
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BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina — The hard-line Bosnian Serb government in Pale defied President Biljana Plavsic on Saturday by announcing that it was suspending her appointment of an acting interior minister.
In a statement issued through Bosnian Serb state media, the government said it will regard all of Plavsic’s decisions from now on as “irregular, illegitimate and nonbinding.”
The announcement came as Plavsic, locked in a power struggle with followers of indicted war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic, backed off from a Saturday night deadline for hard-liners to tone down state news broadcasts.
On Friday, Plavsic, the democratically elected president of the Serb-run portion of Bosnia, had flexed her own muscles by appointing Marko Pavic to replace Dragan Kijac, the Serbian interior minister whom she had fired.
It was the dismissal of Kijac that led to a standoff between Plavsic and the hard-liners controlling the government.
Saturday’s announcement seemed to rule out any hope of compromise in the rivalry, raising fears of either a territorial split in the Serbian half of Bosnia or an armed conflict.
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