Prospects for Trilateral Relations between Turkey, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

• Author: Mulalic, Muhidin
• Position: ARTICLE - Report

Introduction (1)

After the end of the Cold War and with the adoption of "Vision 2023: Turkey's Foreign Policy Objectives," Turkish foreign policy and diplomacy towards the Balkans changed. Consequently, Turkey began to play a proactive and mediating role in the Balkans, skillfully utilizing shared geography, history, economics, and culture. In 2009, initial steps were undertaken towards the adoption of trilateral relations between Turkey, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. This tripartite diplomatic model was a step forward in enacting of new trilateral relations and a multi-dimensional model to tackle a number of regional problems. Turkey encountered a multi-polar world, whose changing security, political, and economic realities could be addressed more successfully by means of a trilateral relations model. (2)

Turkey had already adopted a trilateral relations model elsewhere; for example, Turkey-Russia-Iran, Turkey-Afghanistan-Pakistan, Turkey-Poland-Romania, Turkey-Azerbaijan-Georgia, and Turkey-Azerbaijan-Iran. (3) Nonetheless, the limited number of research studies on trilateral relations inhibits a proper understanding of Turkey-Serbia-Bosnia and Herzegovina political, economic, trade, and cultural relations. Thus, a proper analysis of the main declarations, agreements, and official statements is inevitable for determining to what extent trilateral relations as a diplomatic model has been successful. In particular, such an analysis would reveal how trilateral relations at the presidential, ministry of foreign affairs, and ministry of economy and trade levels contributed to political, diplomatic, economic, and trade trilateral relations between Turkey, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Trilateral Relations at the Presidential Level

Turkish foreign policy has significantly changed in the past few decades. The 1990s changes to the world order and Turkish internal political dynamism contributed towards a much more proactive and dynamic foreign policy. These developments went hand-in-hand with Turkey's ever-increasing population, its geopolitical and geostrategic position, resources, economic growth and development, its political continuity and stability, and its military power. "Turkish Strategic Vision 2023" projected the country as a great power with a global character and effective external relations. (4) In this regard, since the 1990s, Turkish involvement in the Balkans has been on the rise. The turning point of greater Turkish involvement in the Balkans, especially in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, began after the signing of the Istanbul Declaration in 2010. (5) The President of Turkey, Abdullah Gul, the President of Serbia, Boris Tadic, and the President of Bosnian Presidency, Haris Silajdzic, accompanied by their foreign ministers, met on April 24, 2010, in Istanbul at the first trilateral relations meeting at the presidency level. This historic meeting, which resulted in the adoption of the Istanbul Declaration, opened the door for much more dynamic tripartite relations between Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia. (6)

The first trilateral meeting at the presidential level led to the opening of a new page in relations between these countries. At first, the leaders of Turkey, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina had to counter long-standing historical animosity and mistrust. Therefore, the initial beginnings of relations emphasized questions of peace, reconciliation, prosperity, stability, and territorial integrity. The major outcome of the first meeting was a regional reconciliation process and Serbian recognition of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Serbian President Tadic clearly stated, "Serbia would not undertake any steps that would destabilize Bosnia and Herzegovina, nor would it challenge its borders and its integrity, which would endanger the stability in the region." (7) Since 2010, Serbian leaders, often under political pressure from Bosniak state-officials, have made official statements, repeatedly, that they recognize the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Thus, the meeting was "a turning point" and "a new beginning" in Serbia-Bosnia and Herzegovina diplomatic relations.

Consequently, President Silajdzic, with the other members of the Bosnia and Herzegovina presidency, visited Belgrade, and Serbian President Boris Tadic participated in the 15th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide. Then, the Serbian National Assembly also passed the decision and apologized for the 'crimes' (not genocide) committed in Srebrenica. (8) Thus the first trilateral meeting, as one of the most important diplomatic events in the Balkans, positioned Turkey as a key mediating power that had the primary goal of bridging Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina and strengthening cooperation among the constituent peoples, i.e. the Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Finally, this meeting also strengthened the position of Turkey as a key power that used proactive diplomacy to promote the Western Balkans' integration into the EU and NATO, with the support and appreciation of the EU countries and Brussels. (9) Actually, the first trilateral meeting was a diplomatic boost for the upcoming EU-Western Balkans Summit in Sarajevo on June 2, 2010.

The second trilateral meeting at the presidential level was organized on April 26, 2011, in Karadordevo in Serbia; it was attended by then President of Turkey Abdullah Gul, President of Serbia Boris Tadic and Presidents of the Bosnian tripartite Presidency Nebojsa Radmanovic, 2eljko Komsic, and Bakir Izetbegovic. The meeting was held at the time when local Bosnian Serb politician Milorad Dodik was threatening with the referendum on the judicial system. However, the trilateral meeting again articulated the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina. (10) In this regard, Serbian President Boris Tadic restated his remarks from the first trilateral meeting Bosnian territorial integrity and sovereignty: "Serbia will never back a referendum in Bosnia that would lead to the division of Bosnia and question its territorial integrity and entirety." (11) Similarly, Turkish President Abdullah Gul repeated, "Turkey is employing utmost efforts to strengthen that cooperation and see all Balkan countries under one EU and NATO umbrella." Overall, the second trilateral meeting focused on peace, reconciliation, detachment from the 1990s bloody conflict culture and mentality, the centrality of the Western Balkans, the region's common future in the EU, and NATO integration. (12)

On May 14-15, 2013 in Ankara, President Gul hosted Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic and Presidents of the Bosnian tripartite Presidency Nebojsa Radmanovic, Zeljko Komsic and Bakir Izetbegovic. Besides (re)affirming Bosnian territorial integrity and sovereignty, this meeting also articulated Bosnia-Serbian relations in particular and regional cooperation in general. The presidents also adopted the Ankara Summit Declaration in which they underlined the Western Balkans' prosperity and the common future of the region based on European values, democracy, rule of law, and cultural pluralism. (13) They also declared that trilateral relations as a mechanism should be used as an institutional framework for regional cooperation. This meeting also significantly articulated fostering further economic, cultural, educational, scientific, energy, infrastructure, transportation, sports, and tourism cooperation. With the adoption of the "Declaration on Economic and Commercial Cooperation" at the ministries of economics and trade, economics and trade relations between Turkey-Serbia-Bosnia and Herzegovina were articulated alongside the earlier focus on reconciliation, peace, dialogue, and territorial integrity and the sovereignty of the Balkans states. Actually, the main motto of the summit was "Building the Future Together." (14)

Although the Ankara Summit Declaration set the next trilateral meeting for 2014 in Sarajevo, it was postponed to 2018, as different political issues contributed to the decline of trilateral meetings at the presidential level in the following years. In particular, Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic made a strong stand against then Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's remark: "Kosovo is Turkey and Turkey is Kosovo." However, trilateral meetings at the level of the ministries of economics and trade and the ministries of foreign affairs took place regularly from 2014-2018.

On January 29, 2018, in Istanbul, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hosted Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Bosnian Presidency Member Bakir Izetbegovic. Renewed trilateral meetings at the presidential level took place after five years, with an agenda similar to those of the above-mentioned three meetings. The three presidents again reiterated the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, Serbian President Vucic strongly articulated the position of the Republika Srpska under the Dayton Peace Agreement, stating, "all we ask from the Bosniaks is to make Serbs in Bosnia feel safe and -just as we do not question Bosnia's territorial integrity- we ask them to treat Republika Srpska the same." (15) In the Western Balkans, Serbia was given a chance to play a much more active role in the process of reconciliation, peace, and stability, especially among the Bosniaks and Serbs. Besides the focus on the relationship between Serbs and Bosniaks, the three presidents also agreed on infrastructural and transportation projects, such as linking Sarajevo and Belgrade through an inter-connecting highway, which will be financially supported by Turkey. This meeting was organized at the time of the peak of bilateral relations between Turkey and Serbia; their trade volume exchange in 2017 surpassed [euro]1 billion.

Between 2017-2018, there were a number of bilateral meetings between the presidents of...