The international community's High Representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Christian Schmidt, said that "under pressure, Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik has given up his plan to jeopardise the survival of BiH's armed forces," in an interview but also warned that "the crisis has not yet been resolved," Croatian state agency Hina reported on Thursday.

In an interview with The Guardian during his visit to Washington DC this week, Schmidt said that regional leaders had convinced Dodik to abandon the idea of pulling Bosnian Serbs out of the Bosnia and Herzegovina’s armed forces and reconstituting the Republika Srpska Serb entity’s armed forces.

Dodik had earlier separately met with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, and Slovenian Prime Minister, Janez Jansa. Soin after, Dodik eased his earlier position and said that a “downsizing of Bosnia’s armed forces” was also acceptable to him, not only their abolition. He also said this in a Wednesday meeting with the European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, Oliver Varhelyi, in Sarajevo

“We see after a lot of talks, including those in the neighborhood, he got the message that nobody would accept a path which leads to an increasing potential of political and – hopefully not – military conflict,” Schimdt said in the interview with The Guardian’s Washington DC correspondent, Julian Borger.

Schmidt said that there were, luckily, not a lot of arms in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which reduces the possibility of conflict, but also warned that Dodik’s separatist rhetoric and his announcements that he would challenge the existing taxation system at the national level, as well as the state judiciary, were “leading the country into a severe crisis.”

According to Schmidt, Dodik has put himself in a situation in which it is for difficult for him to take a step back without losing his political credibility, so that is why a very clear response from the international community was necessary. If Bosnia and Herzegovina fell apart, Schmidt warned, the entire region would be affected.

Schmidt’s office in Sarajevo confirmed that he had met with US administration officials during his stay in Washington DC, including National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, Department of State Councellor, Derek Chollet, and Department of State Undersecretary, Victoria Nuland, whom he briefed.

“Preventing the undoing of results achieved over the past 26 years is a key priority. A successful response to the current challenges will provide Bosnia and Herzegovina with an opportunity to move forward on the path toward the EU, which includes meeting the goals and conditions for ending international supervision,” Schmidt said.