Ireland will support Bosnia's efforts to join the European Union when it takes over the EU presidency next year, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, said yesterday.
Mr Cowen was speaking in Sarajevo during a four-day trip to the Balkans as part of Ireland's preparations to take over the EU's rotating presidency in 2004.
He met his Bosnian counterpart Mr Mladen Ivanic, Bosnia's three-member multi-ethnic presidency and the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lord Ashdown.
Mr Cowen said that Ireland will support Bosnia's quest for EU membership, but Bosnians must first make sweeping improvements to their emerging democracy and wrecked economy.
"We will assist and facilitate in every way, but at the end of the day the responsibility lies on local political powers and local people," he said.
A spokesman from the Department of Foreign Affairs said that Ireland would "continue to make progress under the stabilisation and association processes in the Balkans which are aimed at bringing them closer to the European Union".
Mr Cowen has already visited Serbia and Montenegro, and will today visit Kosovo's President Ibrahim Rugova and Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi in advance of next month's West Balkans Summit in Thessaloniki, Greece.
He will also meet the Army contingent serving with the KFOR international peace-keeping force outside Pristina.