Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina
Reuters
Bosnia expelled two Serbian diplomats on Tuesday and suspended plans to sign a regional cooperation accord in protest over Belgrade’s decision to hold a lavish public funeral for former Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic.
Mladic died on 27th August in The Hague, where he had been serving a life sentence for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 massacre of at least 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica.
People attend a funeral of former Bosnian Serb wartime general Ratko Mladic at the Topcider Cemetery in Belgrade, Serbia, on 7th September, 2026. PICTURE: Reuters/Uros Arsic/File photo
Thousands of people attended his funeral in Belgrade on Monday, in a demonstration of how Mladic remains revered among many in Serbia and Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic. Government officials were among the mourners at the funeral, which was presided over by the head of Serbia’s Orthodox Church.
Bosnia’s Foreign Minister Elmedin Konakovic said two people at Serbia’s embassy in Sarajevo, military attache Milan Dulanovic and intelligence adviser Danko Maksimovic, had 48 hours to leave the country. He did not elaborate.
Konakovic said Bosnia would also abstain from signing a memorandum on good neighbourly relations and cooperation of the Western Balkan countries, which is due to be signed in Montenegro on 1st October.
“With such a Serbia we will not sign documents on good neighbourly relations,” he told a press conference, adding that Serbia had “crossed all red lines” with its handling of Mladic’s death and funeral.
Konakovic said on Monday that Bosnia would withdraw most staff from its embassy in Belgrade in protest at Serbia’s handling of Mladic’s funeral.
SERBIA TO HOLD PARLIAMENTARY VOTE ON 25TH OCTOBER, PRESIDENT SAYS
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday he would set 25th October as the date for a snap vote, as he looks to tighten his grip on Serbian politics after nearly two years of student-led protests and be elected prime minister.
The government on Monday asked Vucic to dissolve the parliament and schedule a snap vote.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic speaks during a press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy (not pictured) during Zelenskiy’s visit to Belgrade, Serbia, on 8th August, 2026. PICTURE: Reuters/Marko Djurica/File photo
“The elections will be held on October 25,” Vucic said in a state RTS central news programme, adding that he would officially announce the decision at noon on Wednesday.
This would allow Vucic, whose Serbian Progressive Party nominated him on Saturday to run for prime minister, to try to reassert his authority after the protests presented the biggest challenge to his rule.
The next parliamentary elections in Serbia were not due until December, 2027. But following nearly two years of student-led protests, Vucic had said he would seek a snap vote.
Vucic, who has run the country as president or prime minister for 12 years, has faced anti-corruption demonstrations triggered by the collapse of a concrete canopy at a railway station in the northern city of Novi Sad in November 2024 that killed 16 people.
The opposition and demonstrators accuse Vucic and his allies of violence against political opponents, rampant corruption, ties with organised crime and stifling media freedoms, all of which Vucic and his allies deny.
– IVANA SEKULARAC, Belgrade, Serbia/Reuters
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On Tuesday, Konakovic criticised a lack of response from the Serbian Government after supporters displayed a gigantic picture of Mladic at a soccer match in Belgrade at the weekend, with his finger pointing “Direction Potocari”, the site of the 1995 massacre near the town of Srebrenica.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described on Tuesday the images of Mladic’s funeral as “shocking” and said the presence of some senior Serbian officials there “demonstrate a failure to confront a dark chapter in Europe’s recent history” and could undermine Belgrade’s plans to join the EU.
In New York, UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Chaloka Beyani said he was “following with concern the public expressions of genocide denial and glorification of convicted war criminal, the deceased Ratko Mladic, in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
“The large-scale public commemoration of Mladić, including the participation of political figures and official ceremonial elements, is both deeply inappropriate and profoundly disturbing,” he said in a statement.
Beyani said the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice had “determined conclusively that a genocide was committed in Srebrenica in 1995.”
He noted that Mladic was convicted by the ICTY in 2017 of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment, a sentence upheld on appeal in 2021.
– With reporting by DAVID BRUNNSTROM in Washington DC, US