Srebrenica Resolution in Serbian Parliament Soon

Addressing reporters in the parliament on Thursday, the speaker said that she will call a session of the parliament next week during which parliamentary groups would be asked to agree on the content of the document.

"There is no final text. There are variations on how the text could look and once we get it, we will make a decision on the session at which it will be discussed," she said.

Serbia's President Boris Tadic launched an initiative for the adoption of a parliamentary resolution on January 13, claiming that Serbia had a moral obligation to adopt a measure condemning the Srebrenica crimes.

But at the same time, he supported the idea of a separate resolution condemning war crimes committed against Serbs, noting that in this way parliament would avoid allocating "collective guilt".

Srebrenica has become a byword for genocide and a symbol of the horror of Bosnia's 1992-95 war. Around 8,000 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys were executed by Bosnian Serb forces after they overran the UN-protected enclave in July 1995.

The European Parliament adopted a resolution in January 2009 calling all European Union member states to recognise 11 July, the date of the start of the Srebrenica massacre, as "a day of commemoration throughout the EU”.

The Serbian speaker specified that the ruling parliamentary coalition has two or three variants of the document which they use in talks with representatives of other parliamentary parties.

"All the deputies are familiar with these texts and the discussions about the possible contents- about how it will look in the end," Djukic Dejanovic said.

According to a survey carried out in January for the National Council for Cooperation with the Hague Tribunal on a sample of 1,000 respondents, the declaration received the support of 20.6 per cent of respondents, while 46.2 per cent preferred the adoption of a single resolution that would condemn all crimes in the former Yugoslavia.

When asked about the position of the Socialist Party of Serbia, SPS, who ruled Serbia in the nineties, on the use of the term 'genocide', Djukic Dejanovic replied that it was a fact accepted by all parties, not just the Socialists.

"Referring to documents that have been adopted on this subject  is not objectionable. SPS is in favour of compromise and there will be no problems about it," said Djukic Dejanovic, who is also vice president of the SPS.

The ICJ, in its 2007 verdict in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina versus Serbia, called the acts perpetrated by Serb forces in Srebrenica crimes of genocide.