Montenegro's Prime Minister, Zdravko Krivokapic, said on Monday that he had launched the procedure to replace Minister for Justice and Human Rights, Vladimir Leposavic, in the aftermath of his controversial statement about the Srebrenica massacre in the 1992-95 Bosnian War which was widely met with condemnation in the country and abroad.

Two weeks ago, asked by the opposition in the Montenegrin parliament whether he agreed that a genocide had been committed in 1995 in Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia, Leposavic said he did not know whether the “war criminals in Srebrenica had genocidal intent or not.”

In July 1995, Bosnian Serb military overran an enclave held by Muslim Bosniak forces in eastern Bosnia. Although women and children were put on buses and sent to Bosnian Army-held territory, some 8,000 men and boys were slaughtered in massacres which ensued. In 2004, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague convicted two high-ranking Bosnian Serb officers for war crimes in Srebrenica, and in its ruling recognized the massacre as an act of genocide.

However, Bosnian Serb nationalist parties and leaders traditionally downplay or deny the scale of the crime and reject the “genocide” moniker.

MP Andrija Nikolic of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) had asked Leposavic, a member of the ruling conservative pro-Serb coalition, to comment on the Srebrenica genocide.

Leposavic said he would admit that Srebrenica constituted genocide only when this is determined “unambiguously,” and that all he could go on at the moment is what ICTY judges have determined about the event – but also adding that in his opinion the UN court had “lost its legitimacy.”

His view was slammed by foreign embassies and in the Montenegrin public, as well as leaders in the region, calling on Prime Minister Krivokapic to sack him. President Milo Djukanovic’s DPS also announced that they would propose a bill to legally ban genocide denial.

On Monday, PM Krivokapic said that Leposavic had previously refused to tender his resignation when asked to do so.

He noted that he had not been under pressure by foreign embassies to replace the minister.

Most embassies in Podgorica requested an explanation for Leposavic’s statement from the government, as did the European Commission, and the statement was also condemned by non-governmental organisations in the country and the rest of the region.

The Mothers of Srebrenica association in Serbia invited Leposavic and Krivokapic to visit the Srebrenica Memorial Centre and see for themselves that a genocide had been committed in Srebrenica.

A petition was also started on Monday in Montenegro, calling for Leposavic’s dismissal. In the first three hours it was signed by close to 5,000 people.