By Daria Sito-Sucic
SARAJEVO, June 4 (Reuters) – The international body overseeing Bosnia’s peace process on Thursday failed to agree on a candidate for a new envoy to replace Germany’s Christian Schmidt, who suddenly quit last month under what he said was U.S. pressure.
The discussions will resume, said Schmidt, who resigned in May from the Office of the High Representative, which monitors the implementation of the U.S.-brokered Dayton peace accords that ended the war in Bosnia in 1995.
“These consultations will continue,” Schmidt said in a video message, speaking in capacity of the chairman of the Steering Board of the Peace Implementation Council, an informal body in charge of nominating peace envoys. “All participants look forward to the selection of a consensus candidate in the coming days with a view to transition by end of June.”
The Steering Board consists of representatives of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, United States and the European Union. Russia has suspended its participation in the body.
The U.S. State Department, which has announced that the “U.S.-led nation-building era has passed” and that it wanted the new envoy to have a more limited mandate, supported Italian seasoned diplomat Antonio Zanardi Landi for the job.
“The pre-existing high rep has resigned, and so there’s a new candidate that we will be supporting, he’s an Italian gentleman that we think would do a good job of helping provide some stability to that position,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the congress on Wednesday.
But even though Landi reportedly arrived in Sarajevo on Thursday to attend the meeting, there was no consensus on his selection.
Most diplomats and analysts believe that the institution of the High Representative should remain in place as long as Serb and Croat separatists continue to block the functioning of the state, threatening the country’s integrity and prosperity.
(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
