Addressing reporters after a meeting with the European Union's High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, in Brussels on Thursday, Del Ponte said she expected Gotovina and 16 other indictees to be handed over to the tribunal.
Asked if she had exchanged information concerning Gotovina with Croatian authorities and if she had been informed about attempts to negotiate the general's surrender, Del Ponte only said that she was in touch with Croatian authorities, mostly regarding the Gotovina case, but that she could not provide more information because Gotovina was still at large.
It is certain that Prime Minister Sanader wants to have Gotovina surrender of his own accord, but Gotovina has obviously failed to seize the moment, Del Ponte said.
Addressing reporters, EU High Representative Solana said that the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide would be marked this year. Most responsibility for the fact that some people who are responsible for war crimes are still at large rests with the leaders of Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, whom the Hague tribunal has reported as failing to cooperate, he said.
Solana called on the leaders of the three countries to establish a strong and fair cooperation with the tribunal, which he said was a matter of respect for common values and principles. The EU will soon be making important decisions regarding these countries and it will start making them only after it receives an assessment of their cooperation with the tribunal, he added.
Asked whether Croatia's EU entry talks, scheduled to start on March 17, would be launched on that date if Gotovina was not transferred to The Hague, Solana reiterated that full cooperation with the tribunal was a precondition for the talks. It was stated very clearly before the European Council, the Council of Ministers and other bodies that cooperation with the tribunal is a precondition for the start of talks, Solana said, adding that Del Ponte's report would be absolutely fundamental for the Council's final decision on the matter.
Asked if she had been invited to the meeting of the Council of Ministers scheduled for February 21, at which a negotiating framework for Croatia could be adopted, Del Ponte said she had not been invited, but would probably submit a written report.
She stressed that 2005 was a very important year for the tribunal, particularly in light of the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, and called on the international community and NATO to ensure the arrest of the tribunal's most wanted fugitives, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, who have been at large since 1995.
Del Ponte said that she had informed Solana of the completion of the investigating mandate of the tribunal's prosecution and that the prosecution had submitted to judges the six remaining indictments for confirmation by the end of last year. The prosecution will now focus on the preparation of trials and the trials themselves, which under the tribunal's exit strategy should be completed by the end of 2008.
Later in the afternoon, Del Ponte will meet European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso to discuss cooperation between the Western Balkan countries and the UN tribunal, particularly Croatia's cooperation with the tribunal as a crucial element for the EU's decision on the start of entry talks on March 17.