Biden rebukes Bosnian leaders over tensions

May 20, 2009|Associated Press

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina - Vice President Joe Biden sharply rebuked Bosnia's leaders yesterday and warned that continued ethnic divisions threatened to return the country to the chaos of the bloody Balkans conflicts of the 1990s.

Biden told lawmakers that the United States is worried about the direction that Bosnia is taking, which he said threatens to keep it as one of the poorest nations in Europe - or plunge it back into violence.

The ethnic rivals that make up the leadership of Bosnia have squabbled for years since the 1995 peace agreement that ended three years of war amid the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.

The feuding has halted prospects of joining the European Union.

Biden criticized what he said was years of nationalist rhetoric that had split communities and blocked reforms demanded by the EU as part of its membership process.

"God, when will you tire of that rhetoric?" Biden said in a speech to Bosnia's parliament. "This must stop. Let me be clear: Your only real path to a secure and prosperous future is to join Europe. Right now, you're off that path."

He urged Bosnia's leaders to work together across ethnic and party lines - or face economic hardship or even "descend into ethnic chaos that defined the country for the better part of a decade. The choice is yours."

Biden landed in Sarajevo yesterday, the first stop in a three-day tour of the Balkans.