Srebenica massacre was not genocide, says Serbian president

Serbia has asked Russia to veto a British UN Security Council resolution that would call the Srebrenica massacre during the Bosnian civil war in the 1990s a genocide.

Serbian media said the country's pro-Russian president Tomislav Nikolic has sent a letter to Russian president Vladimir Putin "pleading" for a Russian "no" in the UN council when the resolution is expected to be tabled next week.

Western nations and Russia have been arguing in the UN over whether the worst carnage in Europe since World War Two should be called genocide or not.

The British resolution was intended to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the slaughter of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb troops in July 1995. UN courts have labelled it genocide.

Reuters