On Friday EU officials urged the Serbian government to catch Mladic by
the April 30 deadline or face a halt in talks on closer ties with the
bloc.
Serbia faces Mladic deadline
Serbia's contacts with the European Union look almost certain to be
suspended with the expiry on Sunday of a deadline to arrest and
handover war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic.
On Friday EU officials urged the Serbian government to catch Mladic by
the April 30 deadline or face a halt in talks on closer ties with the
bloc.
"The situation seems to be very clear: unless Ratko Mladic is in The
Hague by the end of the month (April), then we will have no other
option but to disrupt the negotiations," said Olli Rehn, the EU
Enlargement Commissioner.
Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military chief, is charged with
genocide over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of about 8,000 Muslim men
and boys and the siege of Sarajevo.
He has remained at large for more than 10 years since being indicted by
The Hague war crimes tribunal.
The Srebrenica massacre is seen as the single worst atrocity in the
continent since World War II.
Nato has also urged Serbia to arrest Mladic as well as find a positive
solution for Kosovo in order to eventually pave the way for Serbia's
acceptance within the North Atlantic alliance.
"See that Mladic gets to The Hague, and I can tell you that Nato will
bring you in very quickly, then you can continue stabilisation and
association with the European Union," Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the Nato
secretary-general, told a forum in Brussels on transatlantic relations.
Credibility
Mladic is wanted for Srebrenica
massacre of 8,000 Muslims
Meanwhile, an official of an intergovernmental organisation working for
democracy and security of the Balkan region, has said that Mladic could
be handed over to court of The Hague on May 10.
Ehrard Busek, the special co-ordinator of the Stability Pact for South
Eastern Europe, said in a German newspaper at the weekend that "the
latest information that I have received is that Belgrade now plans to
hand him over on May 10".
"The longer the delays, the less credibility Belgrade will have,"
Busek said, urging the EU to put more pressure on Serbia to co-operate.
"They should be harder and act on their words," he said.
Hopes
Vuk Draskovic, Belgrade's foreign minister, said on Friday that hopes
of catching and handing over Mladic in the next few days "still exist"
and vowed that the Serbian authorities would crack down on security and
intelligence personnel protecting him if there was no arrest.
"Otherwise it will be a victory of anti-European forces in Serbia. But
I can promise them no reason for celebration as they can win a battle
but not the war," Draskovic said.
Failure to capture Mladic would mean the suspension of negotiations on
an EU association agreement with Serbia, which would offer the country
membership prospects along with trade priviledges and closer political
ties.
Draskovic said Vojislav Kostunica, the Serbian prime minister, would
address the nation and the EU if the fugivite general had not been
caught by May 3.
Serbia has persistently denied knowledge of Mladic's whereabouts,
although it recently admitted he had been under military protection
until mid-2002 and received a pension from Belgrade until last
December.
According to an analyst who once attended Serbia's military academy
with Mladic, he has remained free from justice thanks to a small but
loyal network of well-connected aides.
Agencies
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