OHR’s Statement at the International Agency’s Joint Press Conference in Mostar

High Representative in Washington with US Officials about cooperation with ICTY

The High Representative, Paddy Ashdown, is in the United States , meeting senior US administration officials in the National Security council and State Department. Today he will hold talks with US Ambassador for War Crimes Pierre Prosper and have dinner the President of the World Bank James Wolfensohn. Tomorrow he will address the UN Security Council, where he will present a regular six monthly update on progress in BiH.  He will then hold talks with UN Secretary General Kofi Anan and Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno.

The main thrust of discussions in both Washington and New York will be the current status of BiH’s efforts to secure admittance to PfP and to begin negotiations on a Stabilization and Association Agreement with the EU.  In particular, the talks will look at measures to unblock the impasse created by lack of co-operation with the ICTY.

They will look at the immanent danger BiH faces due to RS lack of cooperation with ICTY, and whether in the next few weeks the authorities of Republika Srpskacan overturn nine years of failure.

PDHR to attend the formal opening of the Arizona Market

PDHR Donald Hays and Brcko Supervisor Susan Johnson will attend the formal opening of the Arizona Market in Brcko District on Thursday. The opening ceremony will begin at 13:00 hrs.

The rehabilitation of the Arizona Market — regulating the trade there without hampering the entrepreneurial mechanisms that make the market the biggest and most successful in the region – offers a model for the BiH economy as a whole.

As Ambassador Hays will point out, “The Arizona Market is going to be a valuable economic resource, for Brcko, and for BiH as a whole for years to come, because it has been established on a sound legislative and commercial footing. The regulators and the businesspeople have worked together productively to ensure that the project is economically viable, that consumer-safety is ensured and that the operating environment works for the benefit of honest traders. We want to see this model duplicated again and again and again in the rest of the country.”