FROM THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

Treasury Secretary John Snow announced today that Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated thirteen individuals under the Western Balkans Executive Order 13219, as amended by Executive Order 13304. Today’s designation will allow the U.S. Treasury to block the assets in the U.S. of these individuals and to prohibit financial transactions with them by U.S. persons.

The 13 individuals were designated for obstructing, or the risk they pose for obstructing, or support for obstructing the Ohrid Framework Agreement of 2001 relating to Macedonia, and the Dayton Accords, including the decisions of the High Representative, relating to Bosnia and Herzegovina, or for assisting or supporting persons, or for having acted or purported to act on behalf of persons, designated pursuant to the order.

Those designated today were Dragan Basevic, Beljko Borovcanin, Samojko Djorda, Ljuban Ecim, Avdyl Jakupi, Radomir Kojic, Tomislav Kovac, Predrag Kujundzic, Milovan Marijanovic, Ivan Sarac, Mirko Saravic, Xhezair Shaqiri, and Menduh Thaci.

In a parallel action, at a news conference at 1 p.m. (7 a.m. EST) in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Paddy Ashdown, the High Representative and EU Special Representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina, announced the blocking of the assets of 10 of the individuals in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the removal of three individuals from their positions as police officers and the removal of Mirko Sarovic from his position as vice president of the Serb Democratic Party.

Information available to the U.S. government indicates that, among other sanctioned activities, seven of these persons – Dragan Basevic, Beljko Borovcanin, Samojko Djorda, Ljuban Ecim, Tomislav Kovac, Ivan Sarac, and Mirko Sarovic – have used their positions in public office for the benefit of Milovan Bjelica, a person designated pursuant to E.O. 13219. Two of these persons – Radomir Kojic and Milovan Marijanovic – own or control commercial businesses suspected of providing support to persons indicted for war crimes (PIFWC’s) by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia or other persons designated pursuant to Executive Order 13219. Four of these persons – Avdyl Jakupi, Predrag Kujundzic, Xhezair Shaqiri, and Menduh Thaci – are leaders of armed militant groups opposed to the United Nations efforts to establish peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Under Executive Order 13219, the President of the United States exercised his statutory authority to declare a national emergency in response to the unusual and extraordinary threat to national security and foreign policy of the U.S. by persons engaged in, or assisting, sponsoring, or supporting acts of obstructing implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords in Bosnia.

The United States has a vital interest in assuring peace and stability in Europe. In the Western Balkans, the U.S. is engaged, together with NATO Allies, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, UN missions, the EU, and other international organizations in an effort to achieve peace, stability, reconciliation, and democratic development and to facilitate the region’s integration into the European mainstream. The U.S. views full implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords in Bosnia as critical to these efforts.