Sasha Mart, the chargé d’affaires at the Permanent Mission of Serbia to the United Nations, has written to the President of the UN General Assembly and all UN member state missions regarding the adoption of the Srebrenica resolution.
He expressed his desire to once again reflect on the entire process of initiating and implementing this initiative, which, as he stated, concerns the sensitive issue of the war in BiH and requires, according to him, consultations at all levels of government in the country.
In the letter, he emphasizes that they want to inform UN members about several points. The first of these is that there were no consultations on the resolution text at the BiH level.
- There is no decision of the BiH Presidency on this issue, as envisaged by the BiH Constitution. There were no consultations in the region, which is worrying, especially considering that the process of facing the difficult legacy of the war in BiH, aimed at reconciliation and building trust, primarily concerns the region. The text of the draft resolution was negotiated within the core group of states in secrecy, while the negotiation process with the wider UN membership was not an expression of the sponsors’ sincere intention to negotiate the text, but was imposed by the reactions of states. In this regard, let me remind you that, at the presentation of the draft resolution on April 17, the main sponsor initially announced that there would be no consultations on the text. Decisions on submitted proposals were made solely within the core group, which proposed the resolution, and the reasons for deleting some positions, accepting some amendments, and rejecting others were not explained, which is contradictory to the inclusiveness and transparency referred to by the sponsors – Mart emphasized.
He stated that they never received an answer to the question of why Serbia was not invited to the core group.
- On behalf of its Government, I must emphasize that the Republic of Serbia, since it first learned of the plan to submit the aforementioned draft resolution, has been striving, since April of this year, to present to co-sponsors and member states all the reasons why the proposed draft resolution causes tensions in the region and divisions among UN members. We have called for the withdrawal of the draft and a return of the entire process to the beginning in order to achieve consensus on the draft resolution in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as agreement in the region – his letter states.
In the letter, he claims that the sentences “Serbia has been explicitly called upon to engage on multiple occasions” and that “any proposals from Serbia to change the text of the Draft Resolution would be taken very seriously” are incorrect and “completely disregard the fact that Serbia has, on several occasions during consultations, very clearly and in writing explained that the Republic of Serbia is not in a position to comment on the substance of the proposed text, which is not the property of the state it concerns.
- Unfortunately, I must say that the member states of the UN have put themselves in a situation in this way. They will take a stand on the issue of marking the memory of the victims of the tragic war, an issue that requires consensus – Mart reminded.
According to him, the initiative obviously has political goals given the moment when its adoption was proposed.
- Unfortunately, I must mention that this initiative has unmistakable political goals because this very turbulent moment in which the world finds itself has been chosen for its adoption. Finally, and most importantly, an initiative conducted in this way, without agreement in BiH and the region, will not only fail to consolidate peace and heal wounds from the past, but will further deepen the divide between peoples and jeopardize the reconciliation process. I want to believe that the member states will take into account all the above arguments and oppose such an initiative, which is aimed at division rather than unity – concludes the letter.
Source: RTRS
