She was speaking to the press after talks with Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic in Belgrade. She said she held talks yesterday with the team in charge of the Action Plan about what was not being done right and voiced hope the team would work better, saying that all the accused must go to The Hague, notably Mladic.
Del Ponte said Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica confirmed in talks today that his country was ready to fully cooperate with the UN court and that he asked for more patience. She said she told him what was not being done right and that it was to be seen if the application of the Action Plan would improve and yield positive results.
Del Ponte underlined that the Hague tribunal would not close its doors until Mladic and Radovan Karadzic were standing before it.
Draskovic said tracing and extraditing the accused was not an international but a national commitment of the first order.
He said that if the commitment was not met, it meant that there was understanding in Serbia for the accused and for what they had done, or showed that the state was incapable of meeting the commitment.
Today Del Ponte also held talks with the chairman of the Serbian national council for war crimes, Rasim Ljajic, and Deputy PM Ivana Dulic Markovic.
After the talks with the chief prosecutor, Kostunica said in a statement that cooperation with the Hague tribunal was in Serbia's interest and that the Action Plan had only one clear objective, to locate, arrest and extradite Mladic and the other accused.
Yesterday Del Ponte held talks with President Boris Tadic, who said that unless the accused were extradited, Serbia would not be able to resume negotiations on stabilisation and association or make steps towards the EU. He added he was not optimistic about her report to the EU later this month.
Belgrade's Radio B92 said information was leaked to the effect that the report about whether the Serbian authorities were doing their utmost to arrest Mladic would be negative but not destructive.
After the report the EU is expected to decide whether to resume the stabilisation and association negotiations suspended over the failure to arrest Mladic.