The Serbian Parliament passed a resolution early Wednesday with a paper-thin majority to condemn the massacre of thousands of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica 15 years ago.
The declaration, which offered apologies to families of the victims of the worst atrocity in Europe since the World War II, was backed by 127 legislators in the 250-seat assembly, dpa reported.
Serbian nationalists vehemently opposed the declaration, insisting that the reports of killings at Srebrenica were overblown and that any massacre was not different from atrocities committed against Serbs in the Bosnian war.
Some 8,000 Muslim boys and men were killed by Serb forces at Srebrenica in July 1995, toward the end of the three-year war pitting Serbs against Muslims and Croats.
The resolution aims to help Serbia distance itself from the past and move closer to the European Union. It pledges support for the arrest of Ratko Mladic, the general who commanded Serbs at Srebrenica.
Mladic remains on the loose in Serbia despite a genocide indictment by the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Serbia remains reluctant to arrest him, though that is a key condition for its closer ties with the EU.