In line with a significant future development of the situation and close cooperation with the ICTY, the Council will again and on time focus on that issue, based on a verbal report made by the task force, the Foreign Minister of Luxembourg and president of the EU Council, Jean Asselborn, said reading a statement on behalf of the EU Presidency.
The five-member task force, comprised of the foreign ministers of Luxembourg, Great Britain and Austria and EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana and EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, held separate talks first with del Ponte and then with the Croatian delegation.
Croatian PM Ivo Sanader expressed satisfaction with the meeting adding that he did not expect that "a decision will be made today, given that the task force is not authorised to make any decision" stressing that decisions were being made by the EU Council.
"If there has been some progress today it is that we have re-established dialogue and restored trust," Sanader said. He added that he informed the task force of a number of measures Croatia had taken since March 16 regarding the resolving of the general Ante Gotovina case. He also announced a plan with six items Croatia will implement in the next months.
Asselborn said the EU would closely observe the implementation of the plan which the Croatian PM declined to explain in detail.
The Croatian delegation informed us about measures taken since March and about an action plan with measures it is going to take in next weeks. I express satisfaction with the political will Croatia has shown in order to fully meet its commitments in cooperation with the ICTY and answer open questions. We shall closely follow the implementation of that plan, Asselborn said in his statement.
Prosecutor del Ponte did not change her previous position, namely that Croatia was not cooperating fully with the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
Our positions did not change, del Ponte said. At the moment Croatia is not fully cooperating with the Hague tribunal, the prosecutor stressed after the talks with the EU task force.
She said Gotovina was in Croatia and that he occasionally travelled to Bosnia, namely that he was within the reach of the Croatian authorities.
The prosecutor said she had informed the EU task force about the network harbouring the runaway general.
Asselborn stressed that Croatian cooperation with ICTY is something which depended on The Hague. It is out of the question that we can act as an ad hoc court authority, he said. However, the Council must establish whether Croatia is fully cooperating and that's why it wanted to have an instrument that will help in this, Asselborn said.
The keys to the doors of the EU are in the hands of Croatia and its full cooperation with the ICTY, he added.
Sanader said that Croatian authorities had no information that would lead to the conclusion that Gotovina was in Croatia, as Carla del Ponte claimed.
The Croatian PM said he did not treat the task force as an arbiter between Croatia and the tribunal's prosecution given that all of them had a joint goal, i.e. to bring all the indictees before the tribunal.
With regard to a network which, according to del Ponte, is harbouring Gotovina, Sanader said that Zagreb "will check all tips which it is getting from various sides. We shall cooperate with the Office of the Prosecutor and some (EU) member-countries and call on them to share with us all the relevant information".
Sanader also voiced hope that Croatia's membership talks would soon be opened.
On the margins of the Luxembourg session of the task force, Sanader met with each member of that body, Jean Asselborn, Jack Straw, Ursula Plassnik, Olli Rehn and Javier Solana. Commenting on his meeting with the British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Sanader said that its was "an encouraging meeting" that lasted some 20 minutes.