ANKARA, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he will discuss the crisis in Bosnia with Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic on Tuesday and that Ankara would step up its diplomacy on the matter, according to broadcaster NTV.
Mostly Muslim Turkey has long had deep-rooted ties with the Balkans. It backed Bosnia's late Bosniak Muslim leader Alija Izebegovic during its 1990s war but has forged good relations with its post-war, inter-ethnic Bosniak-Serb-Croat presidency.
Bosnia was split into two widely autonomous regions - a Serb Republic (RS) and a Federation dominated by Bosniaks and Croats overlaid by a loose central government after the war.
The crisis flared after Serb Republic lawmakers passed a non-binding motion last year to start pulling the RS out of Bosnia's armed forces, tax system and judiciary, a move long backed by nationalist Serb leader Milorad Dodik.
Turkey has criticised the move as "wrong, dangerous" and has offered to mediate in the crisis, which has raised concerns of a relapse into ethnic conflict.
Vucic will hold talks with Erdogan in Ankara on Tuesday to discuss bilateral ties, cooperation and developments in Bosnia and the Balkans, according to the Turkish presidency.
Serbia was the patron of wartime Bosnian Serb separatists and remains close to Bosnia's post-war Serb entity, sharing a border with it.
Speaking to reporters during a visit to Albania on Monday, Erdogan said Dodik, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and other regional officials had voiced support for his mediation offer.
"We will discuss steps that can be taken in the Balkans and the Bosnia...issue with Mr Vucic. I will emphasise to him the importance of peace and stability in Bosnia for the (wider) region," he was cited as saying.
"In the coming period, we will intensify diplomatic traffic," Erdogan said, adding Turkey will use its "respectable" standing with regional actors for the resolution of the crisis.
Vucic called on Dodik last week to return to national institutions that the RS has boycotted since mid-2021 over a law criminalising the denial of genocide.
International war crimes judgments have branded the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in Srebrenica by Serb forces as genocide, something Serbs deny.
Dodik's secessionist rhetoric has spurred hard-line nationalist rallies and incidents in towns across the Serb Republic.
Earlier this month, the United States imposed new sanctions on Dodik for corruption and threatening the stability and territorial integrity of Bosnia. The European Union also said last week the Bosnian Serb leadership faced EU sanctions and a loss of aid should it continue to incite tensions. (Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu Editing by Mark Heinrich)
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