UN vote postponed for Srebrenica genocide resolution

Voting for a resolution on Srebrenica has been postponed will not take place on 2 May, Bosnia and Herzegovina's Ambassador to the United Nations, Zlatko Lagumdzija, said of the N1 television.

At this moment, we know the session will not be held on May 2nd, as today we are sending the text of the resolution for revision to see if UN states have other proposals for text. The General Assembly will likely convene after May 6th, depending on the schedule of sessions, but we will know that on Tuesday”, he said.

As the ambassador said, Bosnia and Herzegovina's mission to the UN will participate in this discussion in order to better explain the text of the resolution to all states that have uncertainty.

UN headquarters in New York are being held informal consultations on the draft resolution, which envisions the July 11th International Genocide Memory Day in Srebrenica.

As announced on the UN website, consultations on the draft resolution have been called by the permanent missions of Germany and Rwanda, along with the missions of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chile, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Netherlands, Liechtenstein, Malaysia, New Zealand, Slovenia, Turkey and the United States.

In the draft resolution, which earlier had access to Radio Free Europe, it is also required to condemn any denial of genocide in Srebrenica and actions that glorify war crimes convicts, including those who are the response to the genocide in Srebrenica.

In 2007, the International Court of Justice characterised the crime in Srebrenica as genocide, in which more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were killed in 1995 by the Republika Srpska Army.

So far, more than 50 people have been sentenced to over 700 years in prison for the genode and other crimes committed in Srebrenica. /rel