Agence France-Presse,
LUXEMBOURG: Serbia is still not fully cooperating with the UN war crimes tribunal and must arrest former Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic to prove it is doing so, chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said Monday.
Del Ponte urged European Union foreign ministers, meeting in Luxembourg, to wait until she visits the Balkans state again on October 25-26 before moving forward on an agreement between Brussels and Belgrade on closer ties.
“Cooperation with Serbia — yes, it has improved but it's not enough. It's slow, it's without results, it's irresolute,” she told reporters after laying out her case to the ministers.
“Mladic is within the reach of Belgrade and it is a question of political will to have Mladic in The Hague,” she said.
“The fact that Mladic and (former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan) Karadzic are still on the run is really scandalous. It's something that the international community cannot accept.”
Mladic and Karadzic have been indicted by the UN warcrimes court for the former Yugoslavia on charges including genocide over the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica.
Mladic is believed to be in hiding in Serbia while Karadzic is suspected of finding sanctuary among sympathisers in Bosnia and Montenegro.
Last week, Serbia offered a one-million-euro (1.4 million-dollar) reward for information leading to Mladic's capture, which Del Ponte described as an “encouraging sign.”
But she told the ministers: “I cannot give a positive assessment of full cooperation until Ratko Mladic is arrested and transferred to The Hague,” where the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is based.
Del Ponte's assessment has long been the gauge by which the EU has conditioned progress on the rapprochement accord with Serbia, a so-called Stabilisation and Association Accord.
The European Commission wants to initial the agreement — a first step for Balkans nations to join the EU — soon, but Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said he would wait until Del Ponte reports back late this month.
“Her findings will be strongly taken into account when we effect the initialling of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with Serbia,” he told reporters.
But he remained upbeat, saying: “Serbia's cooperation is now at a level which can be described as now half full, rather than half empty, but it is essential that Serbia intensify its work.”
Initialling the SAA would mean nothing in legal terms but it would be a political gesture toward Serbia that could prove useful amid an international dispute over the future of its southern province of Kosovo.
