26 January 2017•Update: 27 January 2017
By Talha Ozturk
BELGRADE, Serbia
A Serb member of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s tripartite presidency said Thursday any reopening of the country’s international genocide lawsuit against Serbia would lead to a new crisis between the two neighbors.
Mladen Ivanic made the remarks while answering questions at a conference in Serbia's capital, Belgrade.
"Some Bosniak politicians are planning to launch a genocide trial again, despite the opposition of me, other politicians who represent Serbs, and even Croatian politicians in the country," Ivanic said.
The lawsuit has its origins in the July 1995 Srebrenica genocide when Bosnian Serb forces killed 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys after overrunning a UN-protected safe area during the Bosnian War.
In February 2007, the International Court of Justice in The Hague rejected the genocide case taken by Bosnia against the state of Serbia.
Although it described Srebrenica as a case of genocide, it did not find Serbia guilty of being directly responsible for the killings.
The court granted a right to sue again in 10 years upon the provision of new evidence.
Speaking in Belgrade, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic described any re-opening of the genocide case as "putting a finger into Belgrade's eyes".
Dacic said he believed Bosnia would not take any steps to prosecute but if Bosnia did so, Serbia would take its own legal measures.
The Serbian minister said such an action would destroy relations between the two countries and harm common interests.
