Bosnia's state-level prosecutors issue arrest warrant for Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik

Bosnia's state-level prosecutors issued arrest warrants on Wednesday for three top Bosnian Serb officials — including the president of the Western Balkan country's Serb-majority entity of the Republika Srpska (RS), Milorad Dodik.

Dodik, who has previously said he does not recognise the country's state-level prosecutor's office, has rejected the warrant's validity and any attempts at his arrest, and said he will not go to Sarajevo for questioning.

"There is no such blow or suffering that I am not ready to endure for the Republika Srpska. Milorad Dodik will carry out his duties and I will never leave the Republika Srpska," the Bosnian Serb leader said in the entity's de facto capital, Banjaluka, on Wednesday.

"If anyone thinks we are cowards, they are sorely mistaken," he added.

In addition to the Bosnian Serb leader, the entity's Prime Minister Radovan Višković and National Assembly Speaker Nenad Stevandić are the other two names on the warrant, with the prosecutor's office charging them for anti-constitutional conduct.

Bosnia's state-level court convicted Dodik in late February of going against the decisions of the country's international peace envoy, Christian Schmidt, which constitutes a criminal act. The verdict is not final, and Dodik can appeal it.

Shortly after, Dodik introduced new laws meant to ban the operation of state-level security and judicial institutions in what comprises about half of the Western Balkan country’s territory. 

The decisions have been temporarily suspended by the state-level Constitutional Court.

In Bosnia, the High Representative acts as the chief arbiter in high-profile disputes and the key figure overseeing the implementation of the Dayton Agreement, signed in 1995 to stop the war in the country. 

The agreement brought about the end of the war between the country's three main ethnic groups — Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats — that began in 1992 during the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia, deemed as the bloodiest conflict on European soil since World War II. 

The peace deal, parts of which act as the country's constitution, split the country into two main administrative units, or entities: the Serb-majority RS and the Bosniak-Croat Federation of BiH (FBiH), partially overseen by an umbrella state-level government. 

Meant to appease the former belligerents, it created a complicated system of checks and balances, said to be the world's most complex democracy. 

Meanwhile, NATO's secretary general on Monday pledged the military alliance's "unwavering" support for Bosnia's territorial integrity, visiting the capital Sarajevo amid one of the most significant political crises roiling the EU membership hopeful since the end of the war.

"Three decades after the Dayton Peace Agreement, I can tell you: NATO remains firmly committed to the stability of this region and to the security of Bosnia and Herzegovina," Rutte said. "We will not allow hard-won peace to be jeopardised."

Rutte called any actions undermining the accord, the constitutional order or national institutions "unacceptable".

"Inflammatory rhetoric and actions are dangerous. They pose a direct threat to Bosnia and Herzegovina's stability and security," the NATO chief added.

The European peacekeeping force in Bosnia, EUFOR, has said it was stepping up the number of its troops in response to the tensions.