The Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Republic of Croatia rejected as unfounded the diplomatic note sent by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in January due to the announcement of the proclamation of an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the Croatian part of the Adriatic Sea.

Bisera Turkovic, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of BiH, intervened due to the announcement of the proclamation of the EEZ, claiming that this would endanger the rights of BiH, ie its right to access the high seas.

In its response to Sarajevo, the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs said it saw no reason for such a reaction because there was no violation of international law in this case, with which high officials of BiH, such as current BiH Presidency Chairman Milorad Dodik, agreed with.

In December last year, the Croatian Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, Gordan Grlic Radman, directly informed Minister Turkovic about all plans to declare the EEZ, while Croatian Ambassador to BiH Ivan Sabolic informed the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of BiH, and even Dodik later said that the proclamation of the EEZ does not call into question the rights of BiH.

It should be considered that the rights of BiH have not been violated in the process of declaring the EEZ by Croatia and that this country is behaving correctly in that regard. In order to swim to high seas (more precisely the international waters) from BiH, you need to pass through territorial waters of Croatia, and that is clear to anyone who looks at the map except Turkovic, said Dodik, commenting on a note which was earlier sent from Sarajevo to Zagreb on January 27th.

Considering these facts, the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs informed the BiH Ministry of Foreign Affairs that it could not accept their note as legitimate and official positions of BiH in this regard.

The proclamation of the EEZ of Croatia will take effect today, and the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs stresses that it will not cause any consequences for BiH because the legal regime of the protected ecological-fishing zone of Croatia (in Bosnian: ZERP) has been applied to that country since 2003. which now becomes an IGP.

The Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs reminds that Croatia provided unhindered access to and from the shores of BiH to the ZERP, under its obligations arising from the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Klix.ba writes.

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Croatia claims that BiH's Right to the High Seas Access has not been endangered - Sarajevo Times