(ANSA) - BELGRADE, 09 SET - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic met today in Belgrade with the new High Representative of the international community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Christian Schmidt, whom he asked to exercise his functions impartially.

Serbia, he said, respects Bosnia and Herzegovina's territorial integrity, as well as the integrity of Republika Srpska, the Serb-majority entity that makes up Bosnia and Herzegovina alongside the other entity, the Croat-Muslim Federation.

"The three peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Serbs, Bosniacs, and Croats) - Vucic added - must be able to decide their own destiny with as little interference and pressure as possible from outside." The international community imposed the High Representative to supervise the observance of the Dayton agreements that in 1995 put an end to the war in Bosnia. This role, however, is strongly opposed by the Bosnian Serb component of the country, according to which the High Representative would have been established in an exclusively anti-Serb function to favor the Bosnian Muslim component.

Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, supported by Moscow, has for some time been calling for the abolition of this authority and refuses to comply with his directives, boycotting every decision. Tensions rose after German Schmidt's predecessor, Austrian Valentin Inzko, imposed a law last July, shortly before the end of his term, banning denial of the Srebrenica genocide and glorification of war criminals. (ANSA).