LUXEMBOURG, Oct 13 (Hina) - The chief prosecutor of the UN war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Carla Del Ponte, on Monday said the tribunal would issue several more indictments against Croatian nationals next year.
The Dutch foreign minister said that after Del Ponte's speech before EU ministers in Luxembourg he saw no reason for the continuation of the process of ratification of the EU-Croatia Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA).
LUXEMBOURG, Oct 13 (Hina) - The chief prosecutor of the UN war
crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Carla Del Ponte,
on Monday said the tribunal would issue several more indictments
against Croatian nationals next year. The Dutch foreign minister
said that after Del Ponte's speech before EU ministers in
Luxembourg he saw no reason for the continuation of the process of
ratification of the EU-Croatia Stabilisation and Association
Agreement (SAA). #L#
Another key test of Croatia's willingness to completely fulfil its
international obligations will be the manner in which the
authorities will react to several new indictments which the ICTY
Prosecutor's Office is planning to make public next year, Del Ponte
told the European Union's foreign ministers who convened in
Luxembourg on Monday. The transcript of her speech was distributed
to reporters.
The tone of her speech before the EU Council of Ministers in
Luxembourg was harsher than that of the report she presented to the
UN Security Council last Thursday.
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the foreign minister of the Netherlands,
which has suspended the process of ratification of the SAA between
Croatia and the EU, told reporters after the ministerial meeting he
saw no reason for the resumption of that process, as Del Ponte had
given a very dark report on Croatia's cooperation.
Del Ponte said in her speech that she had made an effort to acquaint
the Croatian government with the sealed indictment (against
General Ante Gotovina) a month before it was unsealed in June 2001.
She added that she had expected Zagreb to use the time to organise
the smooth apprehension of the indictee, however, the information
leaked and Gotovina escaped.
Until last week I had no convincing indication that the Croatian
authorities were doing their best to locate and arrest the fugitive
or that they were even ready to nab him. On the contrary, until mid-
September, I had been receiving official reports in which Zagreb
tried to prove, without providing any evidence, that Gotovina was
not in Croatia, she added.
The ICTY chief prosecutor went to say that during "a quite open
meeting" with Croatian Premier Ivica Racan in Zagreb on 6 October
she had briefed him on information that Gotovina was in Croatia,
giving names of persons harbouring him, which she said the premier
did not deny.
In conclusions adopted today, the EU council of foreign ministers
urged all countries in the area of the former Yugoslavia to fully
cooperate with the Hague-based tribunal.
"While acknowledging that some progress had been made, it also
noted with deep concern that certain countries and parties of the
region were still failing to co-operate fully with the Tribunal,"
the council said in the conclusions.
The conclusions do not cite any country in the region, but Bosnian
Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, as well as the
retired Croatian general Ante Gotovina, are cited again.
The council calls on the countries in the region "to improve their
cooperation in respect of arrest and transfer of indictees still at
large, requests for documents, access to archives and availability
of witnesses", and it reiterates "the need to intensify efforts to
bring Karadzic, Mladic and Gotovina to the ICTY".
The EU foreign ministers reaffirmed that full co-operation by the
countries of the Western Balkans with the ICTY remained an
essential element of the EU's Stabilisation and Association
process. "Failure to co-operate fully with ICTY would seriously
jeopardise further movement towards the EU."
In the section entitled Regional Co-operation the council recalls
that "regional co-operation and good neighbourly relations form an
essential part of the process of moving towards the EU. In this
context and without prejudice to sovereign rights of States
deriving from the relevant international law, (the council) noted
with regret that the Croatian Parliament decided to declare a
protected ecological and fishing zone in the Adriatic Sea without
appropriate dialogue and co-ordination with the other countries
concerned".
The council therefore called on Croatia "to urgently pursue a
constructive dialogue with its neighbours meant to meet the
concerns of all the parties involved".
(hina) ms sb