|
|||||||
|
|||||||
|
Related Articles
|
|||||||
Europe and the United States increased the pressure on Serbia over most wanted war crimes fugitives Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, following the arrest in Spain of top Croatian fugitive Ante Gotovina.
A chorus of international praise for the former general's arrest on Wednesday has thrown the spotlight on Serbia and the Serb part of Bosnia for failing to track down the two genocide suspects, fugitives for the past decade.
Arresting the fugitives is crucial for both country's hopes of joining the European Union and NATO.
Visiting Belgrade, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said Croatia had kept its promise to help in the search for Gotovina - arrested on Spain's Canary Islands with the cooperation of Zagreb - and now Serbia should follow suit.
"Croatia said it would do it and has done it. It is important Serbia does it as well," he told reporters. "Asking for cooperation is one thing, getting it is another."
Douste-Blazy said Belgrade's cooperation with the tribunal "will not be complete until Mladic and Karadzic are in The Hague." He was backed up by the United States and German ambassadors to Belgrade in separate briefings for journalists.
Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military chief Ratko Mladic top the list of most wanted at the Hague-based UN tribunal, set up to try war crimes from the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
Both are indicted for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslims and for the siege of Sarajevo, which claimed over 10,000 lives during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia.
Their continued freedom threatens to stall efforts by Serbia and its smaller sister republic Montenegro to join the European Union and NATO. NATO troops in Bosnia have also been criticised for their failure to catch the two leaders after the war.
Papers turn up
The EU opened negotiations in October with Serbia-Montenegro on a Stabilisation and Association Agreement, the first step on the long ladder to EU accession. But EU officials say integration is conditional on at least the arrest of Mladic.
Germany's ambassador in Belgrade, Andreas Zobel, told reporters the European Union's patience was "limited". His US counterpart, Michael Polt, said the arrest of Gotovina increased Croatia's lead over Serbia-Montenegro in the race for Euro-Atlantic integration.
Anxious to show it was doing something, Serbia on Friday said it had found the missing pages of Mladic's military file that del Ponte has been requesting in order to prepare her case.
Serbia has delivered 13 suspects to the Hague-based court in the past year, but deadlines for Mladic have come and gone.
The tribunal says the search for Karadzic has recently gone cold, but it is certain that Mladic is often in Serbia.
Amid much hand-wringing, Serbian politicians have admitted Gotovina's arrest will turn the screws on Belgrade.
"We must confront that pressure before we are shoved up against the wall, by fulfilling our obligations as far as that is possible considering no one, not even in the international community, really knows where Mladic is hiding," said Rasim Ljajic, the minister in charge of Hague cooperation.
| Headlines |
|
|
|
