Belgrade, 18 April 2024 (MIA) — Asked to comment on Foreign Minister and presidential candidate Bujar Osmani's statements that the country should withdraw from the Open Balkan initiative and co-sponsor a UN resolution on the Srebrenica genocide, Serbian FM Ivica Dacic said they were campaign-speak and added that he thought it was "very interesting that the country's President, Stevo Pendarovski, was not informed that North Macedonia supported the Srebrenica resolution," MIA's Belgrade correspondent reports.

"If the Macedonian President does not know that North Macedonia will be a co-sponsor of the resolution on Srebrenica, what can I tell you next? I'm just wondering if he [Bujar Osmani] speaks on behalf of all of North Macedonia, the Macedonian, or the Albanian people?" Dacic said in response to reporters' questions earlier on Thursday.

Regarding the resolution to commemorate the Srebrenica genocide to be voted on May 2, Dacic said there was no consensus in the United Nations for its adoption.

"We don't think we should be discussing this topic now. It's not even the anniversary," Dacic said, adding that "the Houthis and the Serbs cannot be the only nations labeled as genocidal." 

"There is no genocide that the countries signing this resolution did not commit, and now they want to lecture us about it," the Serbian foreign minister said. mr/