Del Ponte made the appeal on Wednesday while speaking to reporters outside the Potocari Memorial Complex near Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia before a ceremony marking the 12th anniversary of a massacre of up to 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys committed by Bosnian Serb forces under Ratko Mladic.
Del Ponte said that Serbia should extradite Karadzic and Mladic before the end of the year, when her term in office expires. She repeated several times that the time had finally come for the two fugitives to be transferred to The Hague.
Del Ponte's visit was taking place amid tight security. She was constantly surrounded by bodyguards who would not allow the press to ask her any questions.
Two days ago, an organisation of Srebrenica women whose loved ones had been killed in the 1995 atrocity, protested against Del Ponte's attendance, saying that she had failed to meet their expectations because Karadzic and Mladic were still at large.