SARAJEVO, 06. SEP. 2015 – Bosnian officials said they will take part in an international summit on violent extremism in the US later this month and promised that politicians would adopt a coherent joint approach. The Bosnian Croat chairman of Bosnia’s presidency, Dragan Covic, said that he will participate in the international summit focused on the struggle against ISIS and other forms of violent extremism which will take place in New York at the end of the month.The often opposing views of Bosnia’s three ethno-political blocks have in the past frequently prevented the country’s leaders from having a common position at such international events, but Covic said that this time they would come up with a joint approach. “We want to prepare an approach which so far we usually did not have… so that when I outline the position of Bosnia and Herzegovina, no one in Bosnia and Herzegovina, or at least the three members of the presidency, should dispute it in any way,” Covic told media after a presidency session.He added that the presidency has also asked country’s Foreign Ministry to prepare a joint, longer-term foreign affairs strategy that would, instead of different “ad hoc positions”, establish “a balanced, moderate policy which is fully in line with our strategy of getting closer to the EU and NATO, and our position towards peace in the world.” US President Barack Obama will host the summit in New York on September 29 with leaders of countries representing the global coalition fighting Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq and other extremist groups. It comes amid concerns that some Islamist militant groups are continuing to use the Balkans, primarily Kosovo and Bosnia, to recruit fighters as well as for their transit between the Middle East and Europe. In an apparent attempt to dispel some of these concerns, Bosnia’s Minister of Security, Dragan Mektic said there were no armed militant camps in the country and foreign investors should not be worried about potential security risks. “To all investors, I state that they should freely come to Bosnia and Herzegovina. I personally guarantee them safety,” he said in a statement published by local media. “In Bosnia and Herzegovina there are no terrorist camps where extremists are trained; if they were, we would certainly know about them,” he added. According to Mektic, 130 citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina have been or are currently in Syria. Of that number, 43 of them were killed while another 50 have returned home. If true, this number, which is close to estimates from 2014, indicates no significant increase in the number of Bosnians fighting abroad over the past year. Mektic also said that four citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina are fighting in Ukraine. He added that 19 Bosnian citizens are currently being tried in their home country for fighting on foreign battlefields.
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