Moscow’s ambassador condemns security council resolution to mark 20th anniversary of killing of 8,000 Muslim men and boys as ‘politically motivated’

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Russia has vetoed a United Nations security council resolution that would have condemned the Srebrenica massacre as a genocide.

The resolution was intended to mark the 20th anniversary of the killing of 8,000 Muslim men and boys.

China, Nigeria, Angola and Venezuela abstained and the remaining 10 members of the council voted in favour.

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The vote was delayed a day as Britain and the US tried to persuade Russia not to veto the resolution, which would have also condemned denial that the 1995 massacre was a genocide.

Russia’s UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, said the UK-drafted resolution was “not constructive, confrontational and politically motivated”.

Russia had instead proposed condemning “the most serious crimes of concern to the international community”.

A UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague ruled in 2004 that the Srebrenica massacre was a genocide.

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On 11 July 1995, toward the end of Bosnia’s 1992-95 war, Bosnian Serb forces swept into the eastern Srebrenica enclave, a UN-designated “safe haven”. They killed 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the days that followed, dumping their bodies in pits.

“Our vote against … will not however mean that we are deaf to the sufferings of the victims of Srebrenica and other areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina,” Churkin said before the vote, adding that such a resolution would lead to greater regional tension.

Serbia acknowledges that a “grave crime” took place and adopted a declaration condemning the massacre in 2010 as it sought closer ties with the west, but stopped short of describing it as genocide.

Serbia warned on Tuesday that the resolution would only widen ethnic divisions in neighbouring Bosnia.