SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina-The office of Bosnia's top international official said Friday it has been trying to withdraw from the country for the past three years but local politicians have failed to ensure the necessary stability.

The statement was in reaction to accusations made a day earlier by Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, who accused successive international administrators in Bosnia of behaving like an occupying power.

The office of the current international administrator, Austrian diplomat Valentin Inzko, said it had managed to take Bosnia from war to the gates of the EU, but it "cannot close down if the political situation is not stable."

Foreign administrators are representatives of the Peace Implementation Council, a grouping of countries that signed the 1995 Bosnian peace agreement as guarantors.

Immediately after the war, that council concluded that its representatives had too little authority to do their job and extended their mandate so they could remove obstructive local officials and impose laws. It was that action that Dodik attacked most strongly on Thursday.

The statement said the Peace Implementation Council is the only body that can decide on the closure of the administrator's office, but that the creation of a positive political atmosphere would allow such a decision to be made.

"Unfortunately, some local politicians are not helping us," the statement said.