(MENAFN) The Trump administration on Wednesday lifted sanctions on Bosnian Serb nationalist Milorad Dodik, along with his family and close associates, reversing restrictions previously imposed for actions seen as undermining the Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the Bosnian War more than 20 years ago. The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced the decision without providing a detailed explanation.

Dodik was first sanctioned in 2017 by the Obama administration for defying Bosnia’s Constitutional Court and obstructing the Dayton peace process, with the Treasury accusing him of threatening the “sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina.” The Biden administration reinstated sanctions against him in 2022. Earlier this year, a Bosnian court sentenced Dodik to a year in prison and barred him from politics for six years for defying the authority of the international official overseeing the implementation of the 1995 Dayton Agreement.

Dodik, known for his repeated secessionist rhetoric, has long argued for either a new political agreement for Bosnia or the outright separation of Republika Srpska. The Dayton Peace Agreement created Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state comprising two entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska, though disputes over its interpretation and implementation persist.

In a post on the US social media platform X, Dodik expressed gratitude to Trump and his team “for correcting a grave injustice,” calling the decision “not merely a legal correction, but also a moral vindication” for those serving Republika Srpska. However, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, criticized the move as “reckless and premature,” saying, “Dodik has undermined the Dayton Peace Agreement, cozied up to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and profited from corruption — hardly grounds for relief. The American people deserve answers.”

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