Croatian government wants BiH to explain Trebinje airport: "What is it you're building with Serbia?"

Foto: Printscreen/Youtube/Herceg Televizija

The Trebinje Airport project, which could cost 100 million euros and more, has attracted the attention of the Croatian authorities, which are now asking Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) to explain what exactly is planned to be built in that border area, writes the Seebiz portal.

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The airport will be located in the karst region 14 kilometers west of the center of Trebinje and will cover an area of over 300 hectares. At the end of April an international competition was announced for preparation of design and technical documentation.

The report adds that Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure of Serbia Tomislav Momirovic confirmed at the end of April that Serbia had started communication with representatives of Croatia regarding air control over the territory that will be covered by the future Trebinje Airport.

According to Seebiz, Momirovic explained at the time that Serbia does not want to finance the airport in Trebinje, which will cost between 80 and 100 million euros, and that the sky should be controlled by a third party, neither BiH nor Serbia, but in this case Croatia.

It further states that the Croatian media in the meantime "expressed fears that Belgrade plans to station Russian and/or Serbian fighters in Trebinje" while the Split daily Slobodna Dalmacija wrote in May that "Aleksandar Vucic and Serbia are paying in full, and Milorad Dodik is building a huge international airport in Trebinje, with a terminal bigger than 7,000 square meters and a runway longer than the ones in Zagreb and Belgrade!"

Croatian institutions became active on this issue in mid August.

According to the Radiosarajevo.ba portal, the Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development of the Republic of Croatia Tomislav Coric has requested official information about this project from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of BiH.

"Pursuant to the provisions of Article 3 of the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context, please provide us, as an interested state, with information about the activities related to the construction of the Trebinje Airport near Talez in the Serb Republic (Republika Srpska, RS), Bosnia and Herzegovina," Coric's letter sent to Minister Bisera Turkovic said, reports Radio Sarajevo.

This was also sent to Minister in the RS Government Srebrenka Golic, and the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of Croatia, headed by Gordan Radman Grlic, has been informed about everything, the article says.

(Telegraf Biznis)