He returned to winning ways at Sarajevo in 1987 and at the Zagreb Interzonal, narrowly failed to qualify for the Candidates Tournament (sharing fourth place behind Korchnoi, Ehlvest and Seirawan).

In 1989, he won at Wijk aan Zee (jointly with Anand, Ribli and Sax) and took first place at Portorož/Ljubljana (the Vidmar Memorial tournament).

While playing the Buenos Aires tournament of 1992 (where he finished second), war broke out in his home country and for a while he was domiciled in the Netherlands, along with the Bosnian Ivan Sokolov.

There were more tournament victories to come; first at Wijk aan Zee in 1994 and as winner of the national Dutch Chess Championships of 1997 (equal with Jan Timman but winning the play-off) and 1999.

In 2004, he shared a major success with Vassily Ivanchuk when they tied for first place at the European Individual Chess Championship, held in Antalya, although he lost the play-off for the title.