Radovan Karadzic appears in court at the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, Netherlands in this July 11, 2013 file photo.

The US State Department welcomed the genocide conviction of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic on Thursday, saying it closed “another painful chapter” for the former Yugoslavia.

“We’ll never forget the horrors of genocide in Bosnia, or the many other crimes committed on all sides of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, nor will we ever stop honoring their victims and survivors,” deputy spokesman Mark Toner said, touching briefly on the topic during his daily press briefing.

“With the trial chamber’s conviction, we move one step closer to closing yet another painful chapter in the story of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia,” he said.

UN war crimes judges said Karadzic, the most high-profile figure convicted over the wars that tore Yugoslavia apart, bore criminal responsibility for murder and persecution during the 1992-95 Bosnian conflict.

He was given a 40-year sentence after being found guilty of charges including genocide for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, extermination, deportations and hostage-taking.

The Srebrenica massacre, in which 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered, was the worst bloodshed on European soil since World War II.

Meanwhile, US ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power issued an impassioned statement on the conviction, saying, “This day is long overdue.”

Power, who was a journalist in the former Yugoslavia from 1993 to 1995‎, recounted her time in the diverse Bosnian capital of Sarajevo and her memory of Karadzic as a “gleeful propagandist for an ethnically pure Serb statelet” who had “utter absence of concern” for the violence he brought upon the city.

She said he seemed to operate with “impunity,” acting as if he would never be held accountable.

“This was a man who believed he could do what he wanted, when he wanted, consequences to others be damned,” she said, linking that violence to the present-day brutality of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau and ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The US role in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia included participating in NATO airstrikes on Bosnian Serb targets in 1995, as well as hosting talks later that year at a military base in the state of Ohio that ended with a peace deal signed by the presidents of Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia.

A Bosnian Muslim woman cries during a mass funeral for victims of the Srebrenica massacre in in Potocari, Bosnia in this July 11, 2005 file photo.

Related articles across the web

• Kerry seeks answers on Assad's future in Kremlin talks
• UN envoy sets next round of Syria talks on April 9
• Karadzic Behind Bars, Assad Still Killing
• Russia says international tribunal creates myth Serbs solely to blame for war crimes in former Yugoslavia
• Karadzic guilty of Bosnia genocide, jailed for 40 years
• House Vote Raises Pressure on ISIS Genocide Declaration
• Russian air mission in Syria completed: reasons and implications
• Former Bosnian Serb Leader Radovan Karadzic Gets 40-Year Sentence for War Crimes and Genocide
• Radovan Karadzic guilty of 1995 Srebrenica massacre, sentenced to 40 years in jail
• Karadzic guilty of Bosnia genocide, jailed for 40 years