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Serbian President Won't Attend Srebrenica Ceremony


Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic will not attend a ceremony to mark the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre that takes place in Bosnia on July 11, the president's office said.

The July 2 statement comes as Western nations and Russia are divided over whether the UN Security Council should call the Srebrenica massacre during the Bosnian war an act of genocide.

At the General Assembly commemoration on July 1, UN chief Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power called the killing of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys genocide.

The commemoration took place against a backdrop of intense opposition from Bosnian Serbs and Serbia as well as Russia, a traditional Serb ally, to any mention of genocide in a Security Council resolution marking the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica killings.

Britain has draft a resolution that "condemns in the strongest terms the genocide in Srebrenica."

Meanwhile in Belgrade, the Initiative-7000, a Serbian NGO run by journalist-turned activist Dusan Masic, is calling on the Serbs to lie down in front of the parliament building on July 11 to commemorate the victims and show the scale of the killings.

With reporting by AP

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