BOSNIA-SREBRENICA/SERBIA Serbian PM says ready to attend 20th anniversary of Srebrenica massacre

Record ID: 151762

  • Title: BOSNIA-SREBRENICA/SERBIA Serbian PM says ready to attend 20th anniversary of Srebrenica massacre
  • Date: 19th June 2015
  • Summary: POTOCARI, NEAR SREBRENICA, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (DATE UNKNOWN) (REUTERS) OVER THREE HUNDRED COFFINS CONTAINING REMAINS OF NEWLY IDENTIFIED VICTIMS OF SREBRENICA MASSACRE LAID OUT ON GROUND AWAITING ANNUAL BURIAL CEREMONY IN MEMORIAL CEMETERY WOMAN GRIEVING OVER COFFIN MEN DIGGING GRAVE WITH SPADES PEOPLE WALKING THROUGH MEMORIAL CEMETERY
  • Embargoed: 4th July 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA4QA5J1PXVJ9VHC5176QEVP8JU
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS STORY CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3 AND CONTAINS DISTRESSING IMAGES
    Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, an ultra-nationalist during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, said on Friday (June 19) he was willing to visit the site of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia to mark the 20th anniversary.
    Vucic's attendance at the July 11 ceremony in eastern Bosnia would mark a highly symbolic moment in the Balkan region's recovery and reconciliation after wars that killed some 135,000 people during the breakup of Yugoslavia.
    "More than anyone else, we have to demonstrate that we respect torments and sufferings - pain, if you want - that we even understand hatred towards us of many Bosniaks who went through the hell of Srebrenica," Vucic told reporters at a news conference in Belgrade.
    Former Serbian President Boris Tadic was present at the 15th anniversary ceremony in 2010, but Vucic is far more closely associated with Serbia's nationalist past and the Greater Serbia ideology that fuelled much of the bloodshed.
    In Srebrenica, more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed when the designated United Nations "safe area" fell to Bosnian Serb forces, who were backed by money and men from Serbia during the war.
    It was widely regarded as the worst massacre on European soil since World War Two, and a U.N. court has ruled it constituted genocide. Victims were dumped in pits, then unearthed with diggers and reburied in scattered smaller graves in a bid to hide the crime. Remains are still being exhumed.
    Vucic said he was ready to bow his head so that the "99.9 percent of Serbs who did not participate in such a crime, can walk with their heads held high no matter where they are in the world."
    "If the Bosniaks want, if this is not an additional trouble for them… I will be ready to pay my respects to Muslim and Bosniak victims of Srebrenica," he added.
    Serbia is under pressure from the West to improve relations with its ex-Yugoslav neighbours if it is to make progress on the road to membership of the European Union, with the bloc weighing whether to begin accession talks in earnest this year or next.
    During the wars, Vucic was a senior member of the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party, and once threatened in parliament that 100 Muslims would be killed for every Serb victim in Bosnia.
    He broke away from the party in 2008, embracing Serbia's EU bid and rebranding himself as a pro-Western reformer.
    Vucic said that Serbia had informed all members of the UN Security council that the country would not support the UN resolution on Srebrenica which has been drafted by Britain.
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