We believe that true reconciliation cannot be built on the reluctance or refusal to accept and analyse events from the past. What happened in Srebrenica was the most horrible crime in Europe after World War II, Rycroft says in the letter to Ivanic, forwarded to the media by the British Embassy in Sarajevo on Saturday.
Rycroft's letter is a reply to a letter Ivanic sent last week to representatives of current member-countries of the UN Security Council.
In his letter Ivanic asked that the UN Security Council should not adopt a resolution on Srebrenica proposed by Great Britain, saying that the document was not balanced and therefore could not contribute to reconciliation.
Ivanic and other Bosnian Serb officials, as well as officials in Serbia, find it particularly disputable that the Srebrenica massacre, committed by Bosnian Serb forces, should be qualified as genocide.
Rycroft reminds Ivanic in his letter that the term is used in final court rulings in a number of war crimes cases.
International courts and courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina have confirmed that the crime in Srebrenica fits the definition of genocide in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It is not a political statement. It is a legal fact. Genocide is a crime and those who committed it are criminals and should be punished as such, Rycroft underlines in his letter.
The former British ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, who is very well acquainted with the situation in the country, also says in his letter to Ivanic that stating such facts is not "anti-Serb" because they are not a judgement on the entire ethnic group but on the individuals who committed crimes.
We are not tying this crime to the Serb people and believe others should not do it either, says the diplomat.
He goes on to say that political reactions to Britain's draft resolution on Srebrenica have clearly shown that not enough has been done to make real progress towards reconciliation, either in Bosnia and Herzegovina or the region at large.
Exactly that is a source of concern for the UN Security Council as a body in charge of preserving international peace and security, Rycroft said.
In the last few days we have heard not only public denials of the applicability of the term 'genocide' but of the number of the victims as well. Such political rhetoric is distasteful, destabilising and deeply insulting to the victims, Rycroft says in what is also a comment on criticisms of the resolution coming from Serbia and Bosnian Serb politicians such as Milorad Dodik, who keep trying to minimise the scope of the Srebrenica crimes, challenging proven facts about the murder of more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys.
The central commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide will be held on July 11, when the remains of 136 victims found after the 1992-95 war in mass graves, would be buried. The youngest victims to be buried next week are eight boys who were only 16 when they were killed.
After that burial, the memorial centre of Potocari in Srebrenica will contain the remains of 440 minors.
A total of 6,241 victims of the Srebrenica genocide have been buried at Potocari so far, and another 230 have been buried at other cemeteries in line with their families' wishes.
A large number of high officials are expected to attend the July 11 commemoration, including Croatia's President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic and Foreign Minister Vesna Pusic.
Judging by recent developments, Ivanic, who chairs Bosnia's collective state Presidency, will not travel to Potocari, and he has justified his decision with the British resolution and the ensuing reactions.
"If the resolution had not been proposed and if the things that have happened lately had not happened, I would have visited Srebrenica," Ivanic told the Dnevni Avaz daily of Saturday.
He said that he personally felt deep respect for the victims "because only an insane person would not do it", but added that the aspect of paying tribute to the victims had been lost due to "politicising".
Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic, too, has refused to go to Srebrenica, but Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has left open the possibility of travelling to Srebrenica, saying that he will make a final decision after a vote at the UN Security Council on the draft resolution, set for July 7.