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Turkish President Calls for Peace in Mostar
By Laura Lui
It was created in 1994 after a year-long war between separatist Croats and government forces. The worst fighting was in Mostar, where Croats destroyed a 400-year-old arched bridge built under Ottoman imperial rule in Bosnia.
"For a long time church did not bother mosque and vice versa. This city was happy when everyone could respect his own tradition. Now we have a difficult task," he said. "From our hearts and minds we must throw away hate and replace it with friendship and love. Now there will be Mostar elections where the people of Bosnia should serve as an example to the whole world," he said.
Demirel announced Turkish financial support for projects to rebuild the Ottoman "Old Bridge," which was a cultural
monument on UNESCO's world heritage list, and the war-ruined core of ancient Mostar in southwest Bosnia. Bosnian sources said the Turkish aid would be $20 million. Demirel was also expected to unveil a Turkish consulate in
east Mostar, whose Ottoman-era architecture and narrow, winding streets attracted many Western tourists before the war.
Demirel and Bosnia's Muslim president Alija Izetbegovic had talks earlier with Ricardo Perez Casado, head of the European Union administration mandated to help reunify the city. The EU took charge of Mostar in 1994 with the task of reintegrating two sectors held by breakaway Croat and Muslim-led Bosnian government authorities.
But while some movement of people and goods has been restored across former inner-city front lines, the two sides have resisted pressure to share governing powers and war refugees have been unable to re-claim their homes. The Croats treat west Mostar as "capital of a self-styled ethnic `"republic," Herceg-Bosna, declared in southwest Bosnia and on Saturday named a new separatist government in defiance of a federation enshrined by the Dayton peace treaty.
"The elections cannot change the situation but they can make it more democratic," Mijo Brajkovic, Croat mayor of west Mostar, told reporters after meeting Demirel. "After the elections we must deal seriously with the local economy and then the political situation will be secondary,'' said Brajkovic, a member of the Croat nationalist HDZ party.
Muslims and Croats only agreed to a federation under heavy U.S. pressure and have flouted commitments to create common governing bodies replacing the pre-existing Muslim-led republic and separatist Herceg-Bosna. |
MOSTAR, Bosnia, June 18 (Reuters) - President Suleyman Demirel of Turkey, visiting the ethnically divided city of
Mostar on Tuesday, urged its Muslims and Croats to co-exist peacefully again as they had for hundreds of years. Demirel, an ally of both Bosnia's Muslim-led government and Croatia, patron of Mostar's nationalist Croats, was on a two-day trip to Bosnia to show support for its troubled Muslim-Croat federation.
Elections for a joint city government are scheduled on June 30 but some analysts fear they will entrench rather than end partition because Muslim and Croat nationalist parties totally dominate the political field. "Here many historical objects stand as witnesses to the suffering of Bosnia's people. We can see how people who lived together for such a long time ended up fighting a war," Demirel said in a speech in Muslim-controlled east Mostar.
TURKEY
Berserkistan, June 17 · Turkeys President Demirel Bolsters Ties in Sarajevo
Berserkistan, May 15 · Bosnian Soldiers to Turkey On NATO Training Program
Information about Türkiye (Turkey)
News From Turkey Government of Turkey, Foreign Ministry
News From Turkey All about Turkey
MOSTAR
Berserkistan, June 12 · Mostar Administrator Gives Approval to September Vote
Berserkistan, May 30 · EU Administrator Sets Mostar Elections for June 30
Mostar, A Tale of Two Cities by Berserkistan's Jim Bartlett
For Peace in Mostar, Follow the Money Trail to Croatia
New Administrator Begins Tough Task of Making Mostar Functional
Mostar: Before and After its Devastation A site by Dubravko Kakarigi
Benvenuti in Guerra Gavino Paddeu chronicles Mostar's fall
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