First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dacic met today in Belgrade with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina Igor Crnadak.

Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina would like to have sincere good-neighbourly relations, to strengthen economic cooperation and resolve outstanding issues through dialogue on their common path towards the EU, agreed the Heads of Diplomacy of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“Serbia considers BiH one of its most important partners and its stability is of huge significance for the region”, Dacic said at a joint press conference following his meeting with Crnadak.

Minister Dacic pointed out that Serbia was in favour of sincere and well-intentioned cooperation with BiH as well as of development and progress in the context of the European integration of that country.

“There are some outstanding issues from the past but those should be resolved through dialogue like in all other civilized countries”, emphasized the Head of Serbian Diplomacy adding that we should look to the future because the EU was where both Serbia and BiH belonged. He expressed his conviction that EU membership would contribute, to great extent, to the stability of the entire region and, in this context, he welcome the decision on unblocking the SAA with BiH.

Dacic highlighted that Serbia and BiH had a lot in common, including proposals in relation to joint ventures and projects for shared access to third markets.

Minister Dacic assessed economic cooperation between Serbia and BiH as a good one that amounted to EUR 1.4 billion in 2014, according to Serbian statistics, and underlined that it could be even better.

Minister Crnadak, who is paying his first official visit to Serbia as Head of Diplomacy, said that the purpose of his visit was to demonstrate the BiH commitment to the best possible good-neighbourly cooperation and development of relations with Serbia.

“Our bilateral relations are good and it is my wish to have even better ties in the coming months and years”, underlined the BiH Head of Diplomacy and added that Serbia was one of the most important investors in BiH and that 18% of all investments came from Serbia. He announced that both sides agreed on investing efforts to intensify economic cooperation.

Minister Crnadak said that the two sides also discussed joint meeting between the Government of Serbia and the BiH Council of Ministers as well as the outstanding issues and all-inclusive agreement on European integration aimed at its acceleration