ATHENS

The Czech Republic is sending 150 paratroopers to Bosnia and Herzegovina in response to the growing tension in the country, public broadcaster Radio Prague reported on Wednesday.

The troops will be moving to Bosnia within this week, and are scheduled to stay there for a month.

Czech troops will join Romanian and Italian troops, who are also expected to arrive in Bosnia this week, and will reinforce the EUFOR, which is overseeing compliance with the 1995 Dayton peace agreement that ended nearly four years of war in the country.

Milorad Dodik, president of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Serb entity of the Republika Srpska, had pushed through the regional parliament new laws banning the operation of security and judicial institutions within the Republika Srpska. The top court suspended these laws.

The laws were passed after a court in Sarajevo sentenced Dodik to a year in prison and banned him from office for six years for refusing to comply with decisions made by the international high representative overseeing Bosnia’s peace accords.

State prosecutors on Wednesday ordered the detention of Dodik for "threatening the constitutional order." Arrest warrants were also issued for Republika Srpska Prime Minister Radovan Viskovic and National Assembly President Nenad Stevandic.​​​​​​​

Following the warrants, Dodik told a news conference in the city of Banja Luka he would soon meet Russian officials and request that they veto the extension of the European Union Force Operation Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who spoke to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin last week, said the arrest warrants for the Republika Srpska leadership will destabilize the region.