The US House of Representatives passed a resolution Wednesday marking the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica "genocide," Europe's worst atrocity since World War II.
The chamber labeled the massacre a genocide 10 years ago and Wednesday's voice vote favored a new resolution that mentions the word genocide 14 times.
The mass murder of 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995 marked one of the most horrific episodes of the 1992-1995 war, which ended with Bosnia divided into two semi-independent entities.
The House resolution "affirms that the policies of aggression and ethnic cleansing as implemented by Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995 meet the terms defining the crime of genocide in Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide."
It also "condemns statements that deny or question that the massacre at Srebrenica constituted a genocide."
Serbia has deplored the massacre, but its leaders have refused to call it a genocide.
Belgrade was upset with a draft United Nations resolution submitted by Britain which called for the Security Council to recognise the 1995 mass murder as genocide.
Russia vetoed the draft resolution on Wednesday, a moved hailed by Serbia.