Commenting on Bosnia and Herzegovina Presidency Serb member Milorad Dodik's statement about the formation of a Serb entity army, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Tuesday that statements possibly leading "to the secession of one of the BiH entities" were not useful for relations among ethnic groups.

“Croatia’s position is very clear… BiH should be a sovereign, independent, integral country based on the one state, two entities and three constituent peoples model,” Plenkovic told reporters after a meeting of representatives of the parliamentary majority.

Dodik on Monday again threatened that Bosnian Serb entity authorities would proceed with concrete steps to dismantle some of the most important institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina and that the entity would again form its own army.

Plenkovic said that any statements leading to “separatism or secession of one of the entities from BiH” are “neither useful not beneficial for relations between the peoples.”

Plenkovic announced that he would meet on Thursday with BiH Prime Minister Zoran Tegeltija of Dodik’s SNSD party for the opening of the Svilaj bridge on the VC corridor. “We will exchange our views there. Croatia’s position has always been clear and firm.”

Dodik said on Monday that the Serb entity of Republika Srpska has the right to its own army and will use that right, thus announcing an escalation of the current political crisis in the country where currently the BiH Presidency, the government and both chambers of the national parliament are blocked due to a boycott by Serb officials.

The boycott is aimed at having the decision on the appointment of Christian Schmidt the international community’s High Representative in BiH revoked as the Serb entity authorities believe Schmidt was appointed unlawfully, without a vote in the UN Security Council.

The BiH Army was established in January 2006, when the two entities’ armies were abolished. The integration of the entity armies was conducted with strong advocacy from international officials in BiH, including then High Representative Paddy Ashdown, and the BiH parliament in October 2005 adopted a defence law envisaging the establishment of a single army as the only legal armed force in Bosnia and Herzegovina.