Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has better relations with President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic than with anyone in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia's former foreign minister and MP Zlatko Lagumdzija told N1.

“It is no secret, besides their official meetings they also have gatherings on the Bosphorus,” said Lagumdzija, speaking to N1's hard-talk show Pressing.

“If only our leaders had such meetings with other leaders. Vucic is welcomed at the Elysée Palace, where (Emmanuel) Macron takes him to a cellar to try Napoleon's Cognac. This is how you see that we practically do not exist on the international stage,” he said.

Lagumdzija also touched upon poor economic relations between Bosnia and Turkey, noting that Serbia and Turkey had much better cooperation.

“Let's not be ridiculous, it is not the Bosniaks who need Erdogan but it is Bosnia and Herzegovina that needs his help,” said the former minister.

To make his point, Lagumdzija reminded of a recent statement by the Turkish President who said during his visit to BiH that Turkey has a goal to reach a one billion euro worth trade exchange with Bosnia and Herzegovina, and only a few days later a Turkish minister said in Belgrade they want the trade exchange between the two countries to reach five billion euro.

“There is a large number of those, including the well-intended ones, who believe in all this misery that Serbia should be some sort of a ‘head of the class’. Serbia and Vucic who leads Serbia as a ‘head of the class’. You could see, he is having meetings at the international level, in a month he has more meetings than our (leaders) in four years,” said Lagumdzija, criticising the relations that Bosnia's Presidency members have with other leaders in the world.

According to him, Bosnia does have friends but those who are currently leading the country do not have any.