EU Delays Croatian Entry Talks

The EU postponed membership talks with Croatia yesterday because it has failed to do more to track down a key war crimes suspect.

An alliance led by Britain and Germany warned Zagreb that talks would open only when it had fully cooperated with the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

Jack Straw told fellow EU foreign ministers in Brussels that it would be wrong to give the green light to the former Yugoslav republic while General Ante Gotovina was allowed to remain at large. Gen Gotovina is charged by the tribunal with the ethnic cleansing of 150,000 Serbs.

He commanded the 72-hour blitz in 1995 which won the four year war with Serbia, and it is claimed that some of the Zagreb establishment are shielding him.

"We cannot turn a blind eye to what is going on in Croatia," Mr Straw said.

As a gesture to Croatia, which insists that Gen Gotovina remains beyond its reach, and that it is cooperating with the tribunal, the ministers agreed the framework for membership talks.

Their statement said that talks would open "as soon as the [European] council has established that Croatia is cooperating fully".

The decision is a blow to Croatia, which hopes to become the second former Yugoslav republic - after Slovenia - to join the EU.

But support in Croatia for EU membership has fallen sharply in recent months, a reflection of public anger at the hounding of Gen Gotovina, who is a national hero.

The prime minister, Ivo Sanader, travelled to Brussels on Monday in an eleventh-hour effort to persuade ministers to change their minds.

His intervention was dismissed by 12 of the EU's 25 members, including the "big four": Britain, France, Germany and Italy.