BiH politicians and foreign guests attended the opening of the restored Ferhat Pasha Mosque, also called the Ferhadija, in Banja Luka on Saturday. The mosque was originally built in 1579, and was one of the most important landmarks in BiH from the Ottoman era. It was destroyed, along with several other mosques, during the civil war of the early 1990s.
Bakir Izetbegovic, the Bosniak member of the BiH presidency, spoke at the mosque’s dedication, as did Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
Republika Srpska assigned more than a thousand police officers to provide security for the day’s event, along with personnel from BiH security agencies. No acts of violence or disruption were reported.
