"The outvoting of Croats in elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina is thievery," Croatian President Zoran Milanovic said on Tuesday while visiting the Bosnian town of Jajce, state agency Hina reported. He also "dismissed the possibility of abolishing the Dayton agreement, which ended the country's 1992-95 war," Hina said.

Milanovic was in Jajce to attend a ceremony marking the 27th anniversary of Operation Maestral, which liberated this city in central-western Bosnia and Herzegovina from Bosnian Serb forces. In his speech, he said it was humiliating for Bosnian Croats to have “their political representatives imposed on them by more numerous ethnic groups.”

“In Croatia, representatives of ethnic minorities, including the Serb minority, are elected by their respective communities,” he said, calling the current practice in Bosnia and Herzegovina “thievery.”

“The Bosnian Croats are not a minority, but are being reduced to it. After years of attempts, warnings, insisting and begging, I cannot describe this other than as thievery,” Milanovic said. He opposed “increasing calls by some Bosniak politicians to abolish the Dayton peace agreement,” Hina explained.

“I, as President of Croatia, a modern European country which is a member of NATO and the EU, can say that Croatia will never support that. And not only will it not support it, but it will vigorously fight against it using all peaceful means. There is no Bosnia and Herzegovina without the equality of Croats, Bosniaks, and Serbs,” Milanovic said.

He announced stronger efforts to protect the right of Bosnian Croats to “choose their own political representatives and enjoy equal status.”

Bosnia and Herzegovina will hold a general election on 2 October.

“There is a risk of four times more numerous Bosniaks again outvoting Croats in choosing their own member of the country’s collective presidency and their delegates to the ethnic-based upper house of parliament,” Hina said.

In 1995, after three and a half years of Serb occupation, the Croatian Army (HV), the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) and the predominantly Bosniak Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ABiH) liberated Jajce. Milanovic paid tribute at the monument commemorating those killed in Jajce, and decorated the members of the Jajce-based HVO Hrvoje Vukcic-Hrvatinic Brigade.

He said that this part of Bosnia and Herzegovina was liberated “solely thanks to the efforts of the HV and HVO.” These victories in September, and in particular in October 1995, forced the Bosnian Serb forces under Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic to sit at the negotiating table in Dayton, Ohio, Milanovic said.

He pointed out that the lifting the blockade of Sarajevo and the liberation of Bihac were not achieved by American, British or French fighter jets, but by “the blood of Croat soldiers.”

Operation Maestral lasted from 8 to 17 September 1995, paving the way for further advances by Croat forces. Jajce was liberated on 13 September 1995. It was the first significant operation by the joint HV, HVO and BiH Army forces in western Bosnia and Herzegovina, which gained control of large swathes of territory, including the cities of Drvar, Sipovo, Jajce, Bosanski Petrovac, Bosanska Krupa and Kljuc.