EU Warns Serbia Over Mladic

Serbia’s EU entry negotiations will be halted unless it fully cooperates with attempts to bring the fugitive war leader General Ratko Mladic to justice, the European commission’s head of enlargement warned today.

Oli Rehn told the European parliament that Serbia "cannot avoid ... disruption of negotiations" because of its failure to arrest key suspects wanted in connection with human rights atrocities during the Balkan war of the early 90s.

Calling for "full cooperation without delay", Mr. Rehn said this "should lead to the arrest and transfer of Mladic".

He acknowledged there had been some recent improvement in Serbia’s cooperation with the tribunal, but added that it remained "very little".

"Today, Serbia is at a crossroads. It faces a choice between a European future and a nationalist past," he added.

Mr. Rehn’s warning came two days after a flurry of contradictory reports on whether Serbian security forces were closing in on Gen Mladic.

The general faces charges over allegedly masterminding the siege of Sarajevo between 1992 and 1995, leaving 12,000 dead, and the massacre of Srebrenica, when 8,000 men and boys died in less than a week during July 1995.

On Monday, Mr. Rehn is due to report to EU foreign ministers, who have powers to suspend negotiations, on an agreement designed to draw Serbia closer to the EU and prepare it for eventual membership.

However, the commission has set no deadline for Serbia to comply or face suspension of the talks.

A Serbian government official insisted every effort was being made to capture Gen Mladic.

"We are doing all we can to fulfil this obligation regardless of the pressure and additional deadlines," Rasim Ljajic, the head of the Serbian agency in charge of cooperation with the UN tribunal, said. He did not specify what action was being taken to arrest Gen Mladic.

The calls for the arrest of Balkan war crime suspects were reiterated by a report from the foreign affairs select committee’s annual human rights report, published today.

"We conclude that the capture of war crimes inductee Ante Gotovina [a former major-general in the Croatian army arrested in Spain last December] is a most welcome development," the report said.

"But [we] stress that accession to either the EU or Nato should remain impossible for any of the Balkan states, including Croatia, until they have fulfilled all of their obligations to the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia."

The chief prosecutor at the international tribunal, Carla del Ponte, said Gen Mladic was at large but "within reach" of the Serbian authorities.

Contradictory statements from officials in Belgrade have generated confusion about how close the authorities are to reaching the former Bosnian Serb general, with security officials yesterday insisting negotiations for his surrender were under way and the government issuing denials.

Ms del Ponte said other reports that Gen Mladic had been apprehended were "false rumors ... [with] absolutely no basis whatsoever".

The European commission’s next round of "stabilization and association" talks are scheduled for April.