Serbia has told the EU it would soon arrest war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic, as the EU insists, but expressed concern that the dispute over Kosovo is driving the country further apart from the bloc.
Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic spoke with EU foreign ministers on Saturday in the first high-level EU-Serbia encounter since members began recognizing Kosovo's secession last month. To date, 18 of the 27 EU nations accept Kosovo's independence.
Jeremic said that EU nations' recognition of Kosovo was dangerous, counterproductive and illegal and that it played into the hands of nationalists running in Serbia's May 11 elections.
He told the ministers it was not certain that his own or other pro-EU forces in Serbia could win a legislative majority as long as Kosovo continues to be seen as an independent nation. He also expressed concern about the fate of Kosovar Serbs in overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian Kosovo.
"I am worried that today, Serbia is further away from the European Union than it has been in quite a while," Jeremic said at the ministers' meeting.
Jeremic said Belgrade realized its role in bringing Balkan war crimes suspects to the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague was key to normalizing relations.
"We shall locate, arrest and hand over Ratko Mladic and other remaining [war crimes] indictees," Jeremic told the EU ministers.
Speaking to reporters later, he said Belgrade's commitment to cooperate fully with the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague would lead "in the very near future" to handing over the last remaining indicted suspects -- "first and foremost General Ratko Mladic."
He did not elaborate.
Mladic is wanted on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, most notably committed at the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995 during the Balkan wars.
The EU foreign ministers met separately with Kosovar Prime Minister Hashim Thaci.
Jeremic and Thaci did not meet at a sprawling country estate in northern Slovenia where the EU foreign ministers completed two days of talks on Saturday.
Thaci said that his country wanted good relations with all neighbors "including Serbia," and eventual membership in both the EU and NATO.
Recognition of Kosovo by most EU nations in the past five weeks has been a setback for the EU's already troubled relations with Serbia.
Wary of Serbia falling into Russia's embrace, the EU has made it clear the country is welcome to join in the years ahead. But a pre-membership accord is on hold because of differences over Kosovo and what is seen as Belgrade's foot-dragging on handing over Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader during the Balkan wars.
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