WASHINGTON, May 29 (Hina) - Croatia should do all in its power to trackdown fugitive general Ante Gotovina and hand him over to the Hague warcrimes tribunal, because several months' delay in achieving fullcooperation with the tribunal
may result in several years' delay injoining the European Union, Bruce Jackson, a former US militaryintelligence officer who now runs the Washington-basednon-governmental organisation the Project for TransitionalDemocracies, said in an interview with the Voice of America (VOA)broadcasting service on Sunday.
WASHINGTON, May 29 (Hina) - Croatia should do all in its power to
track down fugitive general Ante Gotovina and hand him over to the Hague war
crimes tribunal, because several months' delay in achieving full cooperation
with the tribunal may result in several years' delay in joining the European
Union, Bruce Jackson, a former US military intelligence officer who now runs
the Washington-based non-governmental organisation the Project for Transitional
Democracies, said in an interview with the Voice of America (VOA) broadcasting
service on Sunday. Croatian politicians sometimes believe that they
can dissuade people from their views, including European Enlargement
Commissioner Olli Rehn who insists on the handover of Gotovina as the condition
for the start of talks between Zagreb and Brussels on Croatia's membership of
the European Union, Jackson said.
Jackson believes that Rehn will not give in.
I know Finns well and you cannot change their views. Commissioner Rehn
is very serious on the Gotovina issue and if Croatia wants to wait for a year
or two, Rehn will also wait for a year or tow, he said.
Time for the start of membership talks should not be wasted, because
the chance to join the EU in 2007 or possibly in 2009 may be lost, Jackson
said.