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Dayton Agreement

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Dayton Agreement

The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also known as the Dayton Agreement or the Dayton Accords (Serbo-Croatian: Dejtonski mirovni sporazum / Дејтонски мировни споразум), and colloquially known as the Dayton (Bosnian: Dejton; Serbian: Дејтон / Dejton), is the peace agreement ending the three-and-a-half-year-long Bosnian War, an armed conflict part of the larger Yugoslav Wars. It was signed on 21 November 1995 in Dayton, Ohio, United States, at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. It was re-signed ceremonially in Paris, France on 14 December 1995.

The warring parties agreed to peace and to a single sovereign state known as Bosnia and Herzegovina composed of two parts: the largely Serb-populated Republika Srpska and mainly Croat-Bosniak-populated Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnia and Herzegovina entered into the related arms control treaty, the Florence Agreement, in 1996 under the Accords. The Dayton followed the Washington Agreement, signed the year prior, in collective efforts to delineate the country's geography.

The Dayton Accords have been criticized for creating an unduly complex political governance system in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as entrenching regional ethnic cleansing.

Though basic elements of the Dayton Agreement were proposed in international talks as early as 1992, these negotiations were initiated following the unsuccessful previous peace efforts and arrangements, the August 1995 Croatian military Operation Storm and its aftermath, the government military offensive against the Republika Srpska, conducted in parallel with NATO's Operation Deliberate Force. During September and October 1995, world powers (especially the United States and Russia), gathered in the Contact Group, pressured the leaders of the three sides to attend settlement negotiations; Dayton, Ohio was eventually chosen as the venue.

Talks began with an outline of key points presented by the US in a team led by National Security Adviser Anthony Lake in visits to London, Bonn, Paris and other European stops 10 – 14 August 1995. These included Sochi, to consult Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev. Lake's team handed off to a separate US inter-agency group led by Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, who went on to negotiate with Balkan leaders in their capitals. The Holbrooke crew conducted five rounds of intense shuttle diplomacy from August to October, including short conferences in Geneva and New York that resulted in the parties' adoption of principles for a settlement on 8 and 26 September respectively.

The Dayton conference took place from 1–21 November 1995. The main participants from the region were the President of the Republic of Serbia Slobodan Milošević (whom the Bosnian Serbs had previously empowered to represent their interests), President of Croatia Franjo Tuđman, and President of Bosnia and Herzegovina Alija Izetbegović with his Foreign Minister Muhamed Šaćirbeg.

The peace conference was led by US Secretary of State Warren Christopher, and negotiator Richard Holbrooke with two co-chairmen in the form of EU Special Representative Carl Bildt and the First Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Igor Ivanov. A key participant in the US delegation was General Wesley Clark. The head of the UK's team was Pauline Neville-Jones, political director of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The UK military representative was Col Arundell David Leakey. Paul Williams, through the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG) served as legal counsel to the Bosnian Government delegation during the negotiations.

Holbrooke spoke of the "immense difficulty of engaging the Bosnian government in a serious negotiation".

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