Serbia welcomes EU decision to crack open door to membership

Oct 25, 2010, 13:29 GMT

Belgrade - Serbian Defence Minister Dragan Sutanovac on Monday welcomed the European Union's decision to advance Belgrade's application for membership.

'Serbia's European journey is unstoppable,' Sutanovac told reporters in Belgrade after EU foreign ministers agreed to forward Belgrade's membership application to the European Commission for technical analysis.

The EU, however, has conditioned progress on membership on the arrest of two war crimes suspects, Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic and former Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic.

Speaking on the margins of a conference with visiting defence officials from Namibia, Sutanovac insisted that there exists political will in Serbia to bring the two fugitives to justice.

'The Defence Ministry is giving its full contribution in the search' for the Mladic and Hadzic, he said.

Officials of the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia have charged that Serbia is not doing enough to arrest and extradite Mladic and Hadzic.

Mladic is charged with genocide in connection with the 1995 execution of 8,000 Muslim boys and men at Srebrenica.

Hadzic faces trial for war crimes in connection with the killing of civilians during the Serb and Yugoslav army siege of Vukovar in 1991.

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