U.N. URGES BOSNIAN SERBS TO COOPERATE WITH HAGUE TRIBUNAL

SARAJEVO, Jan 23 (Hina) - The position of the United Nations is that the Bosnian Serbs must unconditionally cooperate with the international war crimes tribunal and that they must hand over Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic and other war crimes suspects staying in Serb-controlled Bosnia, UN spokesman Alexander Ivanko said in Sarajevo on Thursday. Ivanko said that the Serbian Republic was not in a position to contest the legal foundation of the Hague-based tribunal because it was not a state, which was why the allegations in a letter from Biljana Plavsic to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan had been rejected. In the letter sent earlier this month, Plavsic demanded that the tribunal be dissolved, threatening military and civil disturbances should attempts be made to arrest Karadzic and Mladic. UN Undersecretary Hans Corell has sent a letter to Bosnian Foreign Minister Jadranko Prlic, as a representative of an internationally recognized state, explaining that all sides were obliged to cooperate with the war crimes tribunal. A copy of the letter was also sent to Plavsic. The letter underlined that the Bosnian Serb authorities could not avoid their commitments because they were set by the Dayton peace agreement. (hina) vm 231511 MET jan 97