(11 Jun 2012) Serbia's new president Tomislav Nikolic was sworn in on Monday in an inauguration ceremony boycotted by the leaders of many of Serbia's Balkan neighbours.
Although invited, the leaders of Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia and Macedonia shunned the ceremonies at Belgrade's downtown presidential headquarters after Nikolic denied that the Srebrenica massacre, during which Bosnian Serb forces killed some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in 1995, was genocide.
Europe's worst slaughter of civilians since World War II was proclaimed genocide by the International Court of Justice and a UN war crimes court for the former Yugoslavia that convicted several Bosnian Serbs of taking part in the carnage.
The ex-Yugoslav neighbours also are angry about Nikolic's claims that Vukovar, a Croatian town destroyed by Serb forces during Croatia's war for independence in the 1990s, is actually a Serbian city.
Nikolic's recent statements have fuelled fears that his surprise victory in a May 20 presidential runoff vote over pro-EU Democratic party leader Boris Tadic may threaten post-war reconciliation in the Balkans - the key condition for Serbia to become a member of the bloc.
Nikolic, a former ultranationalist politician who has claimed to have shifted from being staunchly anti-Western to pro-EU, has somewhat toned down his rhetoric recently, including on Monday after his talks with EU enlargement commissioner Stefan Fuelle.
In his speech at the ceremony, Nikolic pledged to press on with his pro-EU policies, declaring that Serbia's road to the EU was the road to the future.
He promised to help Serbia continue on that road.
In an apparent reference to the regional tensions and disagreements over Serbia's role in the war in which some 100-thousand people were killed and millions were left homeless, Nikolic said he won't allow "differences over the past to jeopardise our future."
He said that all the regions differences would be solves peacefully through dialogue.
Fuelle was one of the highest ranking officials to attend the inauguration.
Most of the countries were represented by their ambassadors accredited to Serbia.
Fuelle said he was attending Nikolic's inauguration as an expression of the trust EU had in Serbia to remain and advance on the road to the European Union.
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