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Russia submits more balanced draft resolution on BiH to UN Security Council — official

UNITED NATIONS, June 30 /TASS/. Russia has submitted an alternative draft resolution on Bosnia and Herzegovina to the United Nations Security Council to counterweigh a British-proposed document, which is supposed to be passed on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the tragic events in the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, Alexei Zaitsev, the press secretary of Russia’s permanent mission to the United Nations told Russian journalists on Tuesday.

"We consider our draft to be more balanced and oriented at reconciliation of the sides rather that at drawing new disengagement lines in BiH," Zaitsev said refraining from commenting on the Russian document’s basic provisions. For the moment, "it’s going to be inexpedient," he said.

Britain plans to put its draft resolution to the UN Security Council vote on July 7 - four days ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica tragedy. On July 11, 1995, the Bosnian Serb forces allegedly killed about 8,000 Muslim men and boys in that city. The text of the British draft got into the Serbian media which counted that the word "genocide" was mentioned in the text 35 times and the world "reconciliation" only three times.

Milorad Dodik, the president of Republika Srpska /the Serb Republic in Bosnia and Herzegovina), said in mid-June that he would ask Russia to veto the British draft resolution on Srebrenica. According to him, its adoption will aggravate the situation in the country.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who met Milorad Dodik in St. Petersburg on June 19 described the British draft as absolutely anti-Serbian. He also said that its authors had given an absolutely incorrect interpretation, including in judicial terms, what happened in Srebrenica and what has already been assessed by the United Nations Security Council. Lavrov warned that if adopted the document could incite additional inter-ethnic tensions in the Balkans.

On June 29, Mladen Ivanic, a member of the presidium of BiH from Bosnian Serbs, wrote a letter to the United Nations Security Council urging it to refrain from passing the "anti-Serbian" resolution and warning that it would deepen a split between the country’s ethnic communities.

International justice bodies first classified the events in Srebrenica as genocide on April 19, 2004 when the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia was passing a verdict on General Radislav Krstic. The International Court of Justice of the United Nations also recognized the mass killing of the Muslim population in Srebrenica as genocide on February 26, 2007.

The 1992-1995 Bosnian war claimed the lives of about 100,000 people. The events in Srebrenica are considered to be the conflict’s most tragic chapter.