BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Dec 17 (AFP) - Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Dragan Mikerevic resigned Friday, a day after the international community imposed fresh sanctions against Serb police and officials for allegedly protecting war crimes fugitives.
"For the good of Republika Srpska, I have decided to tender my resignation," Mikerevich told journalists, referring to the Serb-run part of Bosnia created at the end of the former Yugoslav republic`s 1992-1995 conflict.
"I am not ready to accept threats and ultimatums (from the international community) ... which flagrantly violate the constitution of the Republika Srpska and Bosnia."
International High Representative Paddy Ashdown, who has far-reaching powers under the 1995 Dayton peace accords, sacked six Serb police officers and three officials on Thursday for allegedly protecting fugitive war crimes indictees.
It was his second such move this year after earlier sacking several senior Serb officials due to their refusal to cooperate with the UN war crimes tribunal at The Hague, which is seeking several Serb indictees still at large in the Balkans.
The United States on Thursday also announced unilateral sanctions against Bosnian Serb officials, signalling a tough new campaign to isolate indictees such as wartime Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who remains on the run almost a decade after the war.
Karadzic and his former military commander, Ratko Mladic, have been charged with crimes including genocide, notably relating to their suspected roles in the brutal siege of Sarajevo and the massacre of some 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995.
Bosnian Serb authorities only recently apologised for the massacre, the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II, and they have so far failed to arrest a single war crimes suspect sought by UN prosecutors.
The US Treasury froze the US-based assets of the Serb Democratic Party (SDS), two companies and suspects, while the State Department reiterated the need for a "special effort" to strip the fugitives of their support.
US Ambassador Douglas McElhaney also announced a unilateral visa ban against leaders of the SDS and its junior partner in the Bosnian Serb government, the Party of Democratic Progress (PDP).
He did not name those who would be affected but they could include Foreign Minister Mladen Ivanic, who heads the PDP, and possibly also Mikerevic who is a senior member of that party.
Bosnian Serb leaders frequently warn of political chaos resulting from foreign pressure over the war crimes issue, but Mikerevic said he would remain in office until a new prime minister is in place.
Ashdown`s spokeswoman, Irena Guzelova, said Mikerevic`s resignation should not be allowed to derail reforms in the Serb-run entity. "The office of the High Representative expects the work of the government to continue," she told AFP.
On Thursday Mikerevic angrily accused Ashdown of "blackmail", and insisted that the Republika Srpska was "determined" to cooperate with the UN court at The Hague.
Ashdown has not shied away from using the extensive powers of the high representative to force change in the mountainous Balkan republic of just over two million people, which is still struggling to cope with the legacy of the brutal inter-ethnic war between Catholic Croats, Muslim Bosniaks and Orthodox Serbs.
He received strong support Friday from EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who said Ashdown had taken an "important step towards clearing away elements obstructing the cooperation" with the UN court.
The new EU peacekeeping force in Bosnia, which took over from a NATO mission earlier this month, launched raids on a vast Serb military bunker Thursday in its first major operation to track down war crimes fugitives.
In a letter to Bosnian Defence Minister Nikola Radovanovic, Ashdown said there were "reliable reports" that Serb army officers had entertained Mladic in the bunker as recently as July.

12/17/2004 17:53 GMT - AFP