WASHINGTON, 24 May (Hina) - The U.S. administration on Friday refuted information that it had been agreed that Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic would not be arrested and extradited to The Hague War Crimes
Tribunal and that they would withdraw from political life.
WASHINGTON, 24 May (Hina) - The U.S. administration on Friday
refuted information that it had been agreed that Bosnian Serb
leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic would not be arrested and
extradited to The Hague War Crimes Tribunal and that they would
withdraw from political life. #L#
'The answer of the United States is that there is no
agreement. The United States will not accept any agreement
regarding Karadzic and Mladic. They have been accused of war crimes
and the only answer to them is that they should be arrested and
brought to The Hague...', State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns
said.
Burns did not say what mechanisms the U.S. administration was
going to use to ensure that the two Bosnian Serb leaders are
arrested.
IFOR would arrest the two suspects only in case it encountered
them, Burns said.
The New York Times, citing sources from Clinton's
administration, on Friday published that the Serbian President
Slobodan Milosevic, during the last meeting with the Assistant to
the U.S. Secretary of State, John Kornblum, proposed that Karadzic
withdraw from public life and cease taking part in bodies of
authority.
Kornblum did not accept the proposal, Burns said.
The U.S. administration has recently accepted the possibility
that the Bosnian elections be held without the removal of the two
Bosnian Serb leaders from their positions, judging it a 'pragmatic'
approach.
Bosnian authorities would participate in the elections,
despite last week's statements that they would boycott the
elections should the two Serb leaders remain in power.
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