Bosnia's new tripartite presidency took office today, sending conciliatory signals after a bruising campaign in which its Muslim and Serb members set out conflicting visions of the country's future.
Serb Nebojsa Radmanovic, who took over as first rotating chairman, and Muslim colleague Haris Silajdzic both said the ex-Yugoslav republic would only move forward if its three peoples worked to mend disagreements.
The Balkan country, still recovering from its devastating 1992-95 war, wants to join the European Union and NATO but has been warned that its people must first strengthen their joint institutions and work together without outside help.
The EU has no immediate plan to withdraw its 6,000 peacekeepers, but the international protectorate and the post of the powerful peace overseer, currently Germany's Christian Schwarz-Schilling, will be dismantled in mid-2007.
"Differences...should not be a source of conflict but, on the contrary, of advantage," said Mr Radmanovic, who won the October 1st presidential election in Bosnia's Serb Republic.
The 1995 Dayton Accord which ended the war created a single state made up of two entities, the Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat Federation. It was a flawed solution which has left enduring problems.
Mr Radmanovic's party boss, the Bosnian Serb Republic Prime Minister Milorad Dodik, has threatened to organise a secession referendum if the republic's autonomy came under threat.
But Mr Silajdzic has called for both entities to be scrapped so Bosnia can be a truly democratic country able to join the EU. "There are, of course, serious differences about the mode and path to achieve that goal, and these differences need to be solved patiently, by agreement and through respect for different opinions," Mr Silajdzic said.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told the new presidency in a letter that he sincerely hoped that "Bosnia will soon take steps necessary to allow the conclusion of the negotiations for a Stabilisation and Association Agreement". The first challenge would be a reform to unite Bosnia's two separate police forces - which Serbs hotly oppose.
Failure to create a single police force is blocking completion of the talks on a treaty on closer ties with the EU. The second key issue is constitutional reform to strengthen Bosnia's weak central government.
This move failed to win a necessary majority in April due to the opposition of Mr Silajdzic and others who wanted to cut down on laws based on ethnicity. The third member of the tripartite presidency is Croat Zeljko Komsic of the multi-ethnic Social Democrats.