Meeting today in Sarajevo, the Ambassadors of the Steering Board of the Peace Implementation Council (PIC) urged the authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina not to take any unilateral action on State and Defense property. Unilateral action would only undermine the prospects for achieving sustainable settlements on these two issues thereby further delaying completion of the 5+2 agenda and the closure of the Office of the High Representative (OHR).
The authorities in BiH have up to now failed to reach an acceptable and sustainable settlement of the state and defense property objectives. The PIC Steering Board Ambassadors urged the relevant authorities to conclude an agreement on the apportionment of State Property as soon as possible.
The objectives as defined in the 27 February 2008 Declaration of the Steering Board of the PIC Steering Board are:
- Acceptable and Sustainable Resolution of the Issue of Apportionment of Property between State and other levels of government
- Acceptable and Sustainable Resolution of Defence Property
Welcoming recent progress moving BiH towards a resolution on movable defence property, the PIC Steering Board urged the relevant authorities to conclude an agreement on immovable Defence Property, in line with the BiH Law on Defence, through which the State would own property required for future defence purposes.
The Ambassadors of the PIC Steering Board noted with concern the lack of progress by the authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina in fulfilling the State Property Objective.
The PIC Steering Board Ambassadors called on relevant State and Entity authorities to urgently complete the necessary self-assessments of property that are needed for the proper functioning of the respective governments and so pave the way for a resolution of the problem.