Bosnia and Herzegovina foreign minister denied U.S. visa

BELGRADE, September 7 (RIA Novosti, Nikolai Paskhin) - The American Embassy in Sarajevo has rejected an application for an entry visa for Bosnia and Herzegovina Foreign Minister Mladen Ivanic, leading media in the former Yugoslavian republic reported Wednesday.

Ivanic was supposed to travel to New York to attend the 60th UN General Assembly session with a delegation of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Presidium, which consists of representatives of three main ethnic communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Bosnian Muslims, Croats and Serbs. Ivanic, as a member of the Presidium from the Republika Srpska, was to have signed in an international convention against terrorism in New York.

Last December Washington introduced sanctions against Republika Srpska due to the unwillingness of its administration to cooperate properly with the Hague tribunal.

The sanctions included a ban on top-ranking officials from the Republika Srpska Party of Democratic Progress (PDP), which is led by Ivanic, entering the United States.