May 24, 2007 6:51 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) -Bosnian President Haris Silajdzic met in Washington Thursday with the leader of the Serb entity in Bosnia and said they failed to reach agreement on proposals for ending long standing ethnic divisions in the country.

"The Serbs want status quo as a permanent solution," Silajdzic said, alluding to the divisions between the two Bosnian mini-states, one led by Serbs and the other by Bosniaks and Croats.

"I hope we'll reach agreement in the near future. But we failed to do that," Silajdzic said, referring to his meeting Thursday at the State Department with Milorad Dodik, prime minister of Republika Srpska.

Silajdzic spoke to a gathering at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

He said he cannot support the current arrangement under which the Serb minority has the ability to defeat proposals in the national parliament.

"If I had my way I would do away with the entities and the cantons," he said.

He repeatedly refereed to the genocide he said was committed against Bosnian Muslims by Serbs in 1995, drawing a rebuke from a Serb in the audience who said Serb deaths at the hands of Muslims in an earlier conflict exceeded the Muslim deaths in 1995 by 100-fold.

Siladjzic said the man had his facts wrong and added that large numbers of Muslims also died in the incident the man alluded to.

The State Department meeting was convened by Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns. Also participating was the U.S. ambassador to Bosnia, Douglas McElhaney.

The State Department expressed disappointment that Silajdzic and Dodik were unable to agree. "By failing to overcome their differences, they are making it impossible for Bosnia and Herzegovina to proceed on its path to full integration into Euro-Atlantic structures," deputy spokesman Tom Casey said.

During the meeting, Casey said, Burns emphasized the importance of halting "the nationalist rhetoric" that has characterized the political environment for the past year.

McElhaney, meeting with two reporters after the meeting, would not say which leader bore most of the blame for the continuing stalemate.

Asked about the tone of the meeting, he said that at times there were useful exchanges, but at others "it was quite obvious that they lost the string of reason."

The two sides are in sharp disagreement on the issue of changes to the police forces. The Bosniaks and Croats want unification of the ethnically based police forces, but the Serbs want to preserve the status quo. The EU is insisting on progress toward integration of the police as a condition for movement toward EU membership.

Under the present system in Bosnia, both of the ministates have their own parliament and government, but they are linked by a common presidency, parliament and government. Such a model was prescribed by the peace agreement that was brokered under the 1995 Dayton agreement.