The UN Security Council has voted to extend the mandate for European peacekeepers in Bosnia, by another year.

The aim is to ensure the continuity of the peace process, begun ten years ago with the signing of the Dayton accords.

Last December, nearly 7,000 European Union troops took over peackeeping duties from the Nato-led force which had helped end one of Europe's most brutal wars. An estimated 200,000 Muslims, were killed in the hostilities which gave rise to the term "ethnic cleansing".

As a result of the Dayton accords, Bosnia was divided into a Muslim-Croat Federation and a Serb Republic, with each ethnic group having its own president.

Ten years on and the US is urging Bosnian leaders to create a single presidency, something which the original Dayton negotiator, Richard Holbrook supports.

"Getting it down to three presidents was considered quite an achievement. Still we weren’t happy with it, it violates democratic principals and there are very simple solutions to this: a rotating presidency, or a division of the top three jobs, so that you have a president, a prime minister and a speaker, one from each group," he said.

While Muslims and Croats now want a stronger central state, the Serbs are against a single presidency and do not want the Serb Republic to be weakened.

But Bosnia is to begin preparatory EU membership talks on Friday. Demands for such constitutional reforms along with the handing over of war crimes suspects are considered by Europe and the US to be essential.

PHOTO CAPTION

File picture shows NATO peacekeepers near Brcko in northern Bosnia. (AFP)