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Bosnian Serb Parliament Elects New Hardline PM
By Kurt Schork
Klickovic told reporters he saw no reason for Karadzic to face a U.N. war crime tribunal in The Hague and promised slower cooperation with the peace process than his sacked predecessor Rajko Kasagic. "We shall fully implement the peace agreement," he said but added: "Up to now, we have been a step ahead of the Muslim-Croat federation and we intend (in future) to go at the same pace as them."
He promised to keep the same government team, which Kasagic had planned to reshuffle to weed out obstructive hardliners helping Karadzic to undermine the Bosnian peace agreement. Klickovic's appointment was a defeat for Carl Bildt, the International High Representative in Bosnia, and NATO who tried to overturn Karadzic's dismissal of the pro-peace Kasagic on Wednesday.
Bildt flew to Belgrade to meet Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic — whom he is trying to persuade to arrest Karadzic — after talking to Klickovic in Pale. Parliament president Momcilo Krajisnik told reporters that 56 out of 80 deputies were present when a caucus of Karadzic's Serb Democratic Party turned itself into a parliament session. The vote was 55 for Klickovic with one abstention, he added.
Former U.S. mediator Richard Holbrook, who negotiated the Bosnian peace agreement, told CNN that it could be wrecked if Karadzic was allowed to get rid of the moderate Kasagic. "This is the test," he said.
Bildt and NATO political and military chiefs went to Kasagic's power base in the north Bosnian town of Banja Luka this week to show support and say they would continue to work with him. But Kasagic said he would comply with his replacement by parliament.
Bildt complained earlier the dismissal of Kasagic was a coup against the peace process by Karadzic who is fighting a double war crimes indictment. Peacemakers refuse to deal with the Bosnian Serb "president" who was supposed to be driven from power under the peace agreement.
They fear he and his hardliners will wreck crucial postwar elections due in September to provide Bosnia with democratic inter-ethnic institutions. Karadzic, in a statement welcoming Klickovic's appointment, said Vice-President Biljana Plavsic, a hardliner whom Milosevic once said needed psychiatric treatment, would represent him in talks with the outside world.
Efforts to extradite Karadzic to The Hague have been fruitless so far. NATO peacekeepers have refused to arrest him. Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, the chief power broker in Serb politics, has been deaf to the West's pressure to surrender him despite U.S. threats to reimpose sanctions on rump Yugoslavia.
German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel said in a German newspaper interview to be published on Sunday that he asked the U.N. court to issue international arrest warrants for Karadzic and his army commander Ratko Mladic who is also wanted. Klickovic, a 40-year-old sociologist, has recently been involved in the resettlement of Serb refugees who lost their homes during the war and the exodus from Sarajevo earlier this year. He was mayor of the northwestern town Bosanska Krupa before it was captured by a Muslim-Croat offensive last year.
The dismissal of Kasagic thrust into the open a rift between the hardliners gathered round Karadzic in Pale and Kasagic's moderates in Banja Luka. Krajisnik's claim that the hardliners could command 55 votes in parliament contrasted with strong speculation that they could no longer muster a majority.
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PALE, Bosnia, May 18 (Reuters) — The Bosnian Serb parliament elected a new hardline prime minister on Saturday in a show of support for "president" Radovan Karadzic that defied renewed clamour by Western governments for his extradition. Karadzic's nominee, former health minister Gojko Klickovic, was appointed without dissent by an emergency overnight session of the parliament in Pale.
Berserkistan, May 18 · New Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Sets Out Hard Line
Berserkistan, May 18 · Karadzic Outflanks Bildt Over Prime Minister's Firing
Berserkistan, May 18 · Karadzic Names New Prime Minister to Replace Moderate Kasagic
Berserkistan, May 18 · Karadzic's Actions Intensify U.S. Sanctions Threats
Berserkistan, May 17 · Ousted Kasagic Still Controls Bosnian Serb Government
Berserkistan, May 17 · Death Threats to Media Supporting Rajko Kasagic
Berserkistan, May 16 · Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Rajko Kasagic Rejects His Dismissal
Berserkistan May 15 · Radovan Karadzic Dismisses Prime Minister Kasagic
Berserkistan May 10 · Bildt Wins Commitment from Moderate Serbs in Banja Luka
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