Serbia blames 'outside pressure'

By Nick Hawton
BBC News, Belgrade

Radovan Karadzic (left) and Gen Ratko Mladic are still on the run

Serbia has said that continuing political pressure on the country is discouraging those who are trying to locate remaining war crimes fugitives.

Rasim Ljajic, the minister in charge of Belgrade's co-operation with the UN war crimes court, said this only benefited anti-Western forces in Serbia.

He was reacting to criticism from the chief UN war crimes prosecutor.

Carla del Ponte had said that a lack of political will in Serbia was preventing the arrest of main war crimes suspects.

Serbia's government possesses the resources and the means to locate and arrest the fugitives Carla del Ponte, top UN war crimes prosecutor

In particular, Ms Del Ponte said that former Bosnian Serb Gen Ratko Mladic, indicted for genocide for his role during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, was "within reach of Belgrade".

She also said that although Serbia's co-operation with The Hague tribunal had improved during the past year it was "still too slow and not yet sufficient".

Ms Del Ponte was speaking at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg on Monday.

Belgrade's ambitions to move closer to joining the EU depend largely on the country's willingness to co-operate with the UN tribunal.

Last week, Belgrade tried to show this by offering rewards of up to 1m euros (£700,000; $1.4m) for information leading to the arrest of the remaining fugitives, including Gen Mladic and Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic.