BELGRADE, Nov 24 (AFP) - Washington has lost confidence in the Serbian government because of its failure to fully cooperate with the UN war crimes tribunal, US senior envoy for war crimes Pierre-Richard Prosper said in an interview Wednesday.
Prosper told Tanjug news agency that the United States "are very disappointed and losing patience, as the officials in Belgrade have long ago promised actions" related to the arrest of war crimes suspects, believed to be in hiding on the territory of Serbia-Montenegro.
"These promises have still to be fulfilled and it turned out that they have been empty ones," Prosper said.
"It is not the issue of credibility any more, but whether we could at all have confidence in promises they (the government) would give us in future. This is very disturbing," Prosper added.
Prosper's warning came after chief UN warcrimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte complained Tuesday of a "lack of cooperation" by Serbia-Montenegro, Bosnian Serb entity the Republika Srpska, and Croatia in her report before the UN Security Council.
"It is a scandal. All in all, the lack of cooperation by Belgrade remains the single most important obstacle faced by the tribunal in the implementation of the completion strategy," she said.
Del Ponte directly named Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and his government of "showing no interest" to arrest suspects, notably former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, who she has claimed had been in hiding in Serbia.
Prosper also blamed Kostunica for "obvious" lack of cooperation with the Netherlands-based Tribunal, saying such failure has ruined chances for some war crimes trials to be held before Serbian courts, as he has backed in his previous talks with Belgrade.
"When Belgrade obviously does not cooperate and has no intention to cooperate -- and I think, above all, on Prime Minister Kostunica -- the issue of war crimes trials in Serbia is not on the agenda any more," Prosper said.
Del Ponte has repeatedly claimed that former Bosnian Serb war-time commander Ratko Mladic is hiding in Serbia under the protection of elements of the Serbian military, although Belgrade denies any knowledge of his whereabouts.
Some 20 war crimes indictees, including four senior Serbian generals, are at large in the former Yugoslav republic of Serbia, the largest of the six Balkan republics which made up the former socialist federation of Yugoslavia.
11/24/2004 23:28 GMT - AFP