Balkan neighbours boycott Serbia’s presidential inauguration

Serbia’s Balkan neighbours refused to attend the inauguration of the country’s new President, Tomislav Nikolic.
 
The leaders of Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia and Macedonia turned down invitations to the ceremony in Belgrade.
 
Nikolic recently denied the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica was genocide.
 
The EU’s Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuelle was the highest ranking diplomat there:
 
“I have not come to analyse this or that word, but I have come with encouragement and to promote regional cooperation and reconciliation.”
 
The former Yugoslav republics are also furious with Nikolic’s assertion that Vukovar, a Croat town laid to waste by Serb forces during the war, is a Serb city. 
 
Reconciliation in the Balkans is a key condition for Serbia to gain entry into the EU.

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