The ruling coalition in Turkey led by president Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AKP rejected on Wednesday a parliamentary proposal from the main opposition CHP party to recognise the Srebrenica massacre of 1995 as genocide, according to the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN).

The media outlet reported that the CHP proposal also called for July 11 to be declared the Remembrance Day to commemorate the mass killing of the Bosniak men and boys in Srebrenica genocide, done by the Bosnian Serb forces in 1995 but that the AKP-led coalition which has a majority in the Parliament blocked the proposal.

A human rights activist and a lawmaker from the pro-Kurdish Green Left Party told BIRN that there was no official explanation for the decision but that he believes there were three possible reasons for the ruling coalition to reject the proposal.

“Firstly, they do not want to enter the genocide debate since they do not want to worsen relations with Serbia. Secondly, they rejected this bill because the main opposition CHP brought it to parliament. Thirdly, they fear its effects because of the Armenian genocide debate,” said Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu.

Speaking a day earlier, on the occasion of the 28th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, Erdogan expressed condolences to the families and condemned those who are stilly denying genocide.

The remains of another 30 victims were buried on Tuesday at the Potocari Memorial Centre, with the youngest victim aged 15 at the time of the death and other two juvenile victims aged 16 and 17.

Over 8,000 persons were killed in the genocide, mainly men and boys. To date, the remains of 6,652 have been buried at the Potocari memorial. The remains of 237 have been buried elsewhere according to their families’ wishes.

For the Srebrenica genocide, the Hague war crimes tribunal sentenced to life former Bosnian Serb political and military leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.