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The 'General Framework Agreement for Peace in
Bosnia and Herzegovina', also known as the 'Dayton Agreement', 'Dayton Accords', 'Paris Protocol' or 'Dayton-Paris Agreement', is the peace agreement reached at the
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near
Dayton, Ohio in November 1995, and formally signed in
Paris on
December 14,
1995. These accords put an end to the three and a half year long
war in Bosnia, one of the
armed conflicts in the former Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia. Some articles erroneously refer to the agreement as 'The Treaty of Dayton'.
The 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, in concert with NATO's
Operation Deliberate Force, i.e the bombardment of the
Bosnian Serb military. It was also held in the shadow of the massacre in the
Srebrenica safe zone, and the indictments against the main military and government leaders of
Bosnian Serbs before the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). During September and October 1995 the international community (especially the
USA and
Russia), gathered in the
Contact Group, applied intense pressure to the leaders of the three sides to attend the negotiations in
Dayton, Ohio.
The conference took place from
November 1 to
November 21,
1995. The main participants from the region were
Serbian President
Slobodan Milošević (representing the Bosnian Serb interests due to absence of
Karadzic),
Croatian President
Franjo Tuđman, and
Bosnian President
Alija Izetbegović with
Bosnian Foreign Minister
Muhamed "Mo" Sacirbey.
The peace conference was lead by U.S. 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 (later to become NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe (
SACEUR) in 1997). The UK military representative was
Col Arundell David Leakey (later to become Commander of
EUFOR in 2005). The
Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG) served as legal counsel to the
Bosnian Government delegation during the negotiations.
The secure site was chosen in a bid to curb the participants' ability to negotiate in the media rather than at the bargaining table.
After having been initialed in Dayton, Ohio on
November 21,
1995 the full and formal agreement was signed in
Paris,
France, on
December 14,
1995[1] also by French President
Jacques Chirac, U.S. President
Bill Clinton, UK Prime Minister
John Major, German Chancellor
Helmut Kohl and Russian Prime Minister
Viktor Chernomyrdin.
The present
political divisions of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its
structure of government were agreed upon as part the constitution that makes up Annex 4 of the General Framework Agreement concluded at Dayton. A key component of this was the delineation of the
Inter-Entity Boundary Line, to which many of the tasks listed in the Annexes referred.
The agreement mandated a wide range of international organizations to monitor, oversee, and implement components of the agreement. The NATO-led
IFOR (Implementation Force) was responsible for implementing military aspects of the agreement and deployed on the 20th December 1995, taking over the forces of the
UNPROFOR.
See also
★
Washington Agreement of 1994 creating the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovine
External links
★
The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina
★
Bosnia: a single country or an apple of discord?,
Bosnian Institute, 12 May 2006
★
Beyond Dayton: The Balkans and Euro-Atlantic Integration U.S. Institute of Peace Event, November 2005 (Audio & Transcripts)
References
1. Dayton Peace Accords on Bosnia