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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Halt in negotiations with EU does great harm to Serbia

Belgrade, 3 May 2006

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica stated today that the halt negotiations with the European Union has brought us into an unnatural situation where the interests of an entire country are being jeopardised by one man, but since such a decision has already been made, it is up to us to find a solution even in these unfavourable circumstances.

The official website of the Serbian government brings the Serbian Prime Minister’s statement in full.

“Joining the EU represented and still represents one of the highest priorities of the Serbian government. For that reason, the government has constantly worked for more than two years on bringing Serbia closer to Europe and there is no doubt that we succeeded in accomplishing a major part of the work in the previous period. We also confronted the toughest problem of cooperation with the Hague Tribunal. We succeeded in making significant progress concerning that issue as well, which means that all indicted officers of the Serbia-Montenegrin army or Serbian police voluntarily surrendered to the Hague Tribunal, as well as a large number of other indictees. Now we have come to a halt just because Ratko Mladic is not in The Hague.

That is the only reason why negotiations with the EU have been postponed. The EU has brought the decision not to resume talks until Ratko Mladic is extradited to The Hague. This halt does great harm to the Serbian government and to our country, and after all the troubles through which we have gone, this implies that more time will be lost at a moment when every day and week is more than valuable to us as a nation and a state.

Citizens of Serbia should know that the government has done absolutely everything in its power to finally bring Ratko Mladic before the Hague Tribunal. It has been established who participated in the wider group and in the central core of accomplices hiding Ratko Mladic. The court has decided that several of the closest accomplices be taken into custody for a period of few months. Judging by this, since the entire network of accomplices has been discovered, Ratko Mladic is now hiding completely on his own. Therefore it is a question of technical nature to discover the place where Ratko Mladic is hiding now.

It would be best for everyone if Mladic followed the example of other officers and voluntarily went to The Hague. It has never occurred in our history that the entire country and nation suffers because of one officer. To the contrary, it has always been the case that all our officers, regardless to which ideology or time they belonged, put the interests of their nation and country above all. Ratko Mladic is doing great harm to our state and national interests by hiding.

I believe that since the Serbian government has really done all that was possible so far, it would have been better that negotiations were not postponed. Such a halt in the negotiations has brought us into an unnatural situation where the interests of an entire country are being jeopardised by one man. However, since such a decision has already been made, it is up to us to find a solution even in these unfavourable circumstances. That is the task before us which we have to complete,” reads the statement by Vojislav Kostunica.