LUXEMBOURG: Serbs not trying to catch Mladic says UN prosecutor. The political will is there says Serb PM

The European Union (EU) appealed to Turkey on Monday (October 16) to seize what it called the last chance in a long time to make progress on Cyprus and avert a possible freeze in Ankara's EU membership talks later this year. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said Ankara would support proposals by the EU's Finnish presidency to ease trade with the divided island, but diplomats said both sides on Cyprus were seeking to change the plan, which is not yet on paper. European Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said before meeting Gul that this was the last window of opportunity for several years to resolve the problem of Cyprus. He repeated the message at the news conference adding that negotiations were totally intertwined with the political process of reforms. He said the executive European Commission fully supported the Finnish ideas, calling them "the only game in town". "I welcome the fact that the Turkish grand national assembly is currently discussing the so-called reform package which includes a number of important laws such as one establishing the ombudsman and another one concerning the law on foundations. I trust there will be concrete result before our regular report is published on the 8th of November," Rehn said. Gul said Turkey supported the Finnish proposal but did not put forward any ideas on how to solve the Cyprus issue. He played down Turkish outrage over the adoption by French lawmakers last week of a bill making it a crime to deny that Ottoman Turks committed genocide against Armenians in 1915, striking a tone of sorrow rather than anger. The French vote, which may never become law, ran counter to the EU's so-called Copenhagen criteria on democracy, freedom of speech and the rule of law, he said. Asked what impact it would have on EU efforts to get Turkey to amend its penal code to permit greater freedom of speech, Gul said: "We will not repeat somebody else's mistakes." "What is sad for us to see here is that France as a member of the EU and as one of the most important members of the EU has taken this decision (Armenia vote) and Turkey on the other hand has begun accession talks only last year and we have so far had only negotiations in one chapter," Gul said. U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said on Monday she saw no will from Serbia to arrest Ratko Mladic or other war crimes suspects, a condition set by the European Union to restart talks on closer ties. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana highlighted Serbia's political and economic progress but reiterated that reopening of suspended talks remained dependent on Belgrade's full cooperation with the U.N. tribunal. Del Ponte briefed EU ministers and officials in Luxembourg before they met Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica to review progress on Serbia's stalled EU entry bid. "It's almost a smokescreen they are describing us and showing us, it's no real political will and investigative will to locate and arrest Mladic," Del Ponte said afterwards. "Most probably they want him to voluntarily surrender, to oblige him to voluntarily surrender, but I think Mladic will never voluntarily surrender," Del Ponte said. "They will never achieve to locate or arrest Mladic, and I think they have no political will to arrest Mladic." Yet Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said the opposite at the final news conference saying the implementation plan was merely incomplete and that insisting Serbia did have the political will. He did not elaborate on the nature of the progress Serbia was making. "Something that we have for sure is progress. One might say that this implementation of action plan is still not complete but it is going on and it is working and for sure there is a political will," Kostunica said. The former Bosnian Serb military commander is wanted for trial by the Hague tribunal on genocide charges relating to the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

ITN Source | October 17, 2006

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