High Representative and EU Special Representative Valentin Inzko met in Sarajevo today with the new U.S. Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Patrick S. Moon.

Welcoming Ambassador Moon, the High Representative and EU Special Representative Inzko underlined the important role played by the United States of America in the fifteen years since the General Framework Agreement for Peace was signed in Dayton, Ohio. Inzko emphasized the OHR’s close coordination with the USA in the Peace Implementation Council (PIC) in the International Community’s effort to see BiH as a stable and democratic country irreversibly on course for EU and NATO membership.

HR/EUSR Inzko expressed disappointment with the limited progress in terms of completing the ‘5+2’ agenda set by the PIC in February 2008 as a pre-requirement for a decision to close the OHR, and expressed his hope for change.

Ahead of the general elections on October 3, the HR/EUSR said that the central issues facing Bosnia and Herzegovina are how to reverse the economic decline of the last two years, improve the functionality of BiH institutions, and get the country back onto the road to Euro-Atlantic integration. He said that the confrontation and negative rhetoric that have scarred past elections offered the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina no solutions, promising only further political deadlock.