The Graz agreement was a partition agreement signed between Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić

Radovan Karadžic

Radovan Karadžić is a former Bosnian Serb politician. He is detained in the United Nations Detention Unit of Scheveningen, accused of war crimes committed against Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats during the Siege of Sarajevo, as well as ordering the Srebrenica massacre.Educated as a...

 and Bosnian Croat leader Mate Boban

Mate Boban

Mate Boban was a Bosnian Croat politician and the only president of the short lived and self proclaimed Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia that existed between 1991−1994 during the Bosnian war.-Pre-war life:...

on 6 May 1992 in the town of Graz, Austria. The agreement was meant to divide Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...

 between Republika Srpska

Republika Srpska

Republika Srpska is one of two main political entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina...

 and the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia

Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia

The Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia was an unrecognised entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina that existed between 1991 and 1994 during the Bosnian war. It was proclaimed on November 18, 1991 under the name Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia, and claimed to be a separate or distinct "political,...

. The largest group in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Bosniaks

Bosniaks

The Bosniaks or Bosniacs are a South Slavic ethnic group, living mainly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a smaller minority also present in other lands of the Balkan Peninsula especially in Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia...

, did not take part in the agreement and were not invited to the negotiations.

Franjo Tuđman, in a letter to United States senator Robert Dole, later presented the agreement as part of a Conference on Bosnia and Herzegovina sponsored by the European Community.

Division

The Croat administration would receive the territory of Banovina of Croatia

Banovina of Croatia

The Banovina of Croatia or Banate of Croatia was a province of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1939 and 1943 . Its capital was at Zagreb and it included most of present-day Croatia along with portions of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia...

 that is delineated in the Cvetković–Maček Agreement of 1939. In between the newly expanded Croatia and Serbia would be a small Bosniak buffer state, pejoratively called "Alija's Pashaluk

Pashaluk

Pashaluk or Pashalik is a term for one type of the Subdivisions of the Ottoman Empire.It is the abstract word derived from pasha, denoting the quality, office or jurisdiction of a pasha or the territory administered by him....

" by Croatian and Serbian leadership, after Bosnian president Alija Izetbegović

Alija Izetbegovic

Alija Izetbegović was a Bosniak activist, lawyer, author, philosopher and politician, who, in 1990, became the first president of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He served in this role until 1996, when he became a member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, serving until 2000...

.

Reception

According to Vreme

Vreme

Vreme is a weekly newsmagazine based in Belgrade, Serbia.After being prepared for seven months throughout 1990 by liberal Serbian intellectuals dissatisfied with the regime's control of the media, its first issue came out on October 29, 1990. Most of its original staff were journalists from...

’s military analyst Miloš Vasić the Graz agreement was "the single most important document of the war" and was meant to limit conflict between Serb and Croat forces by allowing both parties to concentrate on taking Bosniak territory from the Bosnian forces. The agreement was seen as Bosnian Croats betraying their Bosniak allies. It was also seen as a sequel to the Karađorđevo agreement

Karađorđevo agreement

In 1991, Croatian president Franjo Tuđman and Serbian president Slobodan Milošević had a series of discussions which became known as the Karađorđevo agreement or, less commonly, the Karađorđevo meeting. These discussions commenced as early as March, 1991...

 by the ICTY

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

The International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, more commonly referred to as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia or ICTY, is a...

 judgement in the Blaškić

Tihomir Blaškic

Tihomir Blaškić is a Bosnian Croat army officer who was sentenced in 2000 to 45 years imprisonment at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for war crimes as part of the Lašva valley ethnic cleansing...

 case. A Washington Post editorial compared the agreement to the Hitler-Stalin pact that divided Poland.