PRESS CONFERENCE

Sarajevo, January 19th, 2009.

Press Release

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina Sven Alkalaj and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia Samuel Žbogar hold press conference

After meeting of the two delegations of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Slovenia, signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the MFA of B&H and MFA of the Republic of Slovenia on supporting the EU integration process of B&H and Agreement on Economic Cooperation between the Council of Ministers of B&H and the Government of Slovenia, the two Foreign Affairs Ministers Sven Alkalaj and Samuel Žbogar held a press conference on January 19th 2009.

Ministers Alkalaj and Žbogar agreed that relations between two countries are very good in spite several open issues, and that they tend to improve further. Slovenian Foreign Affairs Minister said that the new Government of Slovenia, and he himself as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, have set the Western Balkans region as their priority. As highlighted, this is the first bilateral visit of the Slovenian Foreign Affairs Minister to a country in the region, which speaks in favor of Slovenian aspiration to establish as better relations with B&H as possible. 

Minister Žbogar confirmed that Slovenia will support B&H in every form on its path toward the Euro-Atlantic integrations and assuming the status of the UN Security Council non-permanent member for 2010-2011. Slovenia confirmed that it supports B&H on its path toward visa-free regime with the EU members. Press was informed that the two countries agreed cultural and sport cooperation as well as social protection.

Two Ministers highlighted that the two countries have different views in terms of the issue of old foreign saving deposits in Ljubljanska banka, and expressed hope that this problem will be resolved as soon as possible to the mutual satisfaction. Regardless the model of problem solution Minister Alkalaj highlighted that money should be returned back to the savers, which is the most important thing. Minister Žbogar said that negotiations regarding those saving deposits should be held within the Succession Agreement, since the saving deposits collected in Ljubljanska banka were transferred to the National Bank of Yugoslavia and therefore, Minister Žbogar communicated that Slovenia expects this Agreement to be negotiated in the Bank in Basel.

In the end of the press conference two Ministers answered questions.