Bosnia and Herzegovina

Kenya's single statement on Bosnia and Herzegovina, delivered in May 2021 in response to a briefing by High Representative Valentin Inzko, arrives on a symbolic date: the 25th anniversary of the initialling of the General Framework Agreement for Peace, the Dayton Agreement that ended the Bosnian War. Kenya's statement measures the country against the "5+2" objectives and conditions (the benchmarks the international community set for closing the Office of the High Representative) and finds them still substantially unmet, a quarter-century on.

The statement's central warning is explicit: that "any statements or policies by leaders that embrace separation and ethnic nationalism must be closely watched and responded to robustly in order to prevent renewed conflict." Kenya draws a direct line from this to its own thematic work on post-conflict reconciliation and counterterrorism, closing with a call for Bosnia and Herzegovina to strengthen its legal and disengagement capacities for returning foreign fighters who had traveled abroad to join ISIS, treating the country's still-unresolved ethnic politics and its counterterrorism obligations as two faces of the same unfinished peace.