BANJALUKA – Milorad Dodik, former President of Republika Srpska, Željka Cvijanović, Serb member of the BiH Presidency, as well as some other individuals and companies from RS, were removed from the blacklist of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a division of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, it was officially stated by OFAC today.
The US sanctions were lifted on all other close associates of Dodik, including companies such as Una TV, as well as on Nenad Stevandić, President of the National Assembly of RS, Radovan Višković, former Prime Minister, Petar Đokić, Minister of Energy of RS, Staša Košarac, Minister of Foreign Trade of BiH, Siniša Karan, former Minister of Internal Affairs of RS and others.
In addition, the US sanctions were lifted on Dodik’s children, Igor and Gorica Dodik.
Radio Free Europe reports that OFAC sanctioned Dodik twice already, due to anti-Dayton actions.
On 18 October, the National Assembly of Republika Srpska appointed Ana Trišić Babić as the acting President of the BiH entity. At the same time, the series of controversial laws, previously described as the “only way to defend RS”, were annulled by the RS Parliament.
These decisions followed the resignation of Milorad Dodik as President of RS, a move which is widely seen as the consequence of international pressure.
In the first reaction to the OFAC statement, Dodik expressed his gratitude to American President Donald Trump.
“I am grateful to President Donald Trump and to his associates for correcting the great injustice inflicted on Republika Srpska, its representatives and their families – an injustice created by the Obama and Biden administrations. The decision to lift the sanctions is not only a legal, but a moral rehabilitation of the truth about the Republic of Srpska and all who honorably serve it”, he wrote on X.
According to Dodik, “once again, it turned out that everything that was said against us was a lie and propaganda, on which the great mess created by Christian Schmidt was built – a mess that must now be cleaned up”.
“To those who have loved and believed in other people’s lies these years, they can forgive everything, except the years we lost because they believed that the Republic of Srpska would fall. Today it is clear-it will never fall”, he concluded.
