The Russian ambassador to Sarajevo indefinitely postponed a visit to Srebrenica after he was not allowed to visit the memorial centre for victims of the 1995 massacres because Moscow refuses to define them as genocide.
Russian ambassador Petr Ivancov has indefinitely postponed a visit to Srebrenica which was planned for Wednesday because Bosniak politicians said he could not visit the genocide memorial-cemetery complex in Potocari, where massacre victims are buried.
“They said that Ivancov was not welcome in Potocari because he allegedly denied the genocide. After that, the ambassador’s office cancelled the visit to Srebrenica,” said Mladen Grujicic, the Serb mayor of Srebrenica.
Grujicic’s Bosniak deputy Nermin Alivukovic said he had initially agreed to meet the Russian ambassador.
“Then another call came in which the ambassador expressed his desire to visit the Potocari Memorial Centre and pay tribute to the victims of genocide. Respecting the decision of the victims of genocide and the decision of the Mothers of Srebrenica Association… not to allow anyone who denies the genocide in Srebrenica to visit the Memorial Centre, I could not accept that request,” Alivukovic told FENA news agency.
“We know very well what Russia’s position on this issue is. It’s the position they put forward at the United Nations, putting a veto on the resolution on genocide in Srebrenica,” he added.
In July 2015, Russia voted down a British-drafted UN Security Council resolution intended to mark the 20th anniversary of the July 1995 massacres of more than 8,000 Bosniaks by Bosnian Serb forces, saying it was anti-Serb and would cause more divisions in Bosnian society.
In a gesture of gratitude in November 2017, a far-right Bosnian Serb organisation called Eastern Alternative unveiled a monument to Vitaly Churkin, the now-deceased Russian ambassador to the UN who vetoed the genocide resolution.
Ramiz Salkic, the Bosniak vice-president of the country’s Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity, in which Srebrenica is situated, said that Moscow’s ambassador should not be allowed to visit the memorial centre.
“There is no place at the Potocari Memorial Centre for those who are not ready to accept the fact that the genocide against the Bosniaks has been proved and judicially ruled upon,” Salkic told Bosnian media.
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