http://www.centraleurope.com/bosniatoday/news.php3?id=213714

Sacked Bosnian Serb President Appeals To Kostunica To Save Republika Srpska

BANJA LUKA, Oct 26, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) Sacked Bosnian Serb
President Nikola Poplasen appealed Wednesday to new Yugoslav President
Vojislav Kostunica to save the Bosnian Serb entity of Republika Srpska (RS),
which has recently faced calls for its abolition.

"I wish to express my belief that you will, as the newly-elected president of
the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, be fighting for general stability and peace and
that
you will fight as well for Republika Srpska's existence," Poplasen wrote to
Kostunica in an open letter.

The Dayton Peace Agreement, reached in 1995 at the end of the Bosnian war,
officially recognized Republika Srpska as a Bosnian entity. In recent months
there
have been numerous calls from Bosnia's other entity of the Croat-Muslim
Federation for the abolition of the entities.

Pointing at such requests, Poplasen underlined that "violations (of the Dayton
agreement) were increasing tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina and are opening
possibility for a new conflict that leads towards the peace destabilization."

Poplasen, an ultra-nationalist, elected in September 1998, was sacked six months
later by the international community and the RS has had no president since.