Bozay said the atrocities committed on 11 July 1995 in a town declared a UN safe area demonstrated the destructive consequences of hatred, discrimination and extreme nationalism.
He underlined that the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia had legally recognised the events in Srebrenica as genocide.
“Denying this truth or presenting it as a ‘symbolic victory’ harms humanity’s collective conscience,” he said.
Bozay also said Türkiye continued to regard peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina as a cornerstone of stability in the Balkans, reaffirming Ankara’s support for the country’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and constitutional order.
Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Ambassador Mirsada Colakovic thanked Türkiye for its “principled and determined support” and said commemorating the genocide together was among the strongest examples of that solidarity.
She said more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys were killed in Srebrenica despite the town having been declared a UN safe area.
“Genocide denial is not freedom of expression; it is the continuation of the crime by other means,” Colakovic said, criticising efforts to portray perpetrators as “heroes” or minimise the scale of the atrocities.
