Mladić arrest remains key condition for EU

Belgrade, September 10 (Source: B92) - The fifth round of technical negotiations between Serbia and the European Union will be held today.

This meeting is expected to be Serbia’s last chance to reach agreement on the remaining technical issues needed for signing the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU. Today’s meeting will deal with issues pertaining to trade concessions related to agricultural products, wines and other alcoholic beverages, as well as traffic issues. Besides technical questions, Brussels is insisting that Serbia arrests war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladić before the SAA can be signed officially.

President of the National Council for Hague Tribunal Cooperation, Rasim Ljajić, told B92 that Serbia’s strategy needed to be altered if the remaining Hague fugitives were not arrested within the coming months, and the people responsible for implementing the cooperation plan needed to be changed. Ljajić said that “all forces are concentrated” on locating and arresting all three Hague fugitives, not just Ratko Mladić. “If these efforts do not produce any results, I do not see any other solution but to change our tactics and strategies, or change the people that are responsible for implementing the plan,” Ljajić said. Ljajić also announced that Hague Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte would be making her last visit to Serbia before leaving the post in December, on September 24.

Del Ponte’s report on Serbia’s level of cooperation with the Tribunal will be important in determining the speed at which Serbia will be able to integrate into European structures. Rasim Ljajić said that while Serbia was expected to arrest Ratko Mladić, Goran Hadžić and Stojan Župljanin, Radovan Karadžić was not Serbia’s obligation. Ljajić said that there was proof that Karadžić did in fact make some kind of agreement with former American envoy Richard Holbrooke. “We have no information regarding Karadžić, besides the fact that a lot of witnesses have told us throughout our investigation that Karadžić really did make a deal with Holbrooke,” Ljajić said.

He claims that witnesses had described how the deal had been made in acute detail. Ljajić said that he did not believe the deal had been cut previously. “Several months ago I said that I didn’t believe in that agreement. If they asked me now, I wouldn’t be able to answer so confidently,” Ljajić said.

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