During last week's cross-examination by the prosecution, Markovic dismissed claims by prosecutor Geoffrey Nice who said that Markovic had participated in talks between Zagreb and Belgrade in the spring of 1991 which focused on the partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina. He said that the topic of a number of meetings, including one between the former Croatian president, the late Franjo Tudjman, and Milosevic in Karadjordjevo, was the general situation in the federation at the time.
Asked by Milosevic today if there had been talks between Zagreb and Belgrade on the partition of Bosnia, the witness said that the meetings had never addressed that topic.
He added that the purpose of several meetings in 1991 was to discuss the political, economic and constitutional aspects of relations in the former federation.
In an additional questioning Milosevic attempted to prove his claim that Serbia did not discuss the partition of Bosnia in the so-called Belgrade Initiative, which he introduced as evidence.
This was an agreement for Bosnia-Herzegovina to remain within the then federation, which was reached by the authorities in Belgrade in September 1991 with a small faction of the Muslim Party of Democratic Action (SDA), which left the party to establish the Muslim-Bosniak Organisation (MBO) under the leadership of Adil Zulfikarpasic.
The document, Milosevic said, proved that the authorities in Belgrade advocated the preservation of Yugoslavia six months after the reported Karadjordjevo agreement on the partition of Bosnia.
In his testimony, which lasted several days, Markovic said that the Serbian delegation which he headed at the 1999 talks in Rambouillet did not reject an agreement on Kosovo, but the dictate of the then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Markovic said that Albright had previously threatened the Serbian delegation that Serbia would be bombed and lose Kosovo if it did not accept what it was offered.
Markovic also said that there were no direct negotiations between the Serbian and the Albanian representatives in Rambouillet.
In last week's testimony, Markovic dismissed the prosecution's claims that the exodus of more than 800,000 Kosovo Albanians in 1999 was the result of the Serbian government's policy, claiming that efforts had been made to find a peaceful solution, which Markovic said included his visits to Kosovo and as many as 15 meetings with Albanian leaders during 1998.
He said that the exodus of Kosovo Albanians was the result of their fear of the NATO bombing.
Milosevic is indicted for crimes against humanity in Kosovo and Croatia and for genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina.