ZAGREB, March 2 (AFP) - Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, on a visit to Croatia Wednesday, said the Balkan countries' integration with the European Union is of strategic importance for Athens.
"The promotion of the European perspective of the countries of southeastern Europe is a strategic priority for Greece," Karamanlis told journalists after meeting his Croatian counterpart, Ivo Sanader.
"We need to transform our region from a place of instability, of turmoil that it once was, to European neighborhood."
But he said Croatia, likely to become the second former Yugoslav republic after Slovenia to join the EU by the end of the decade, must satisfy Brussels' demands for full cooperation with the UN war crimes court at The Hague.
"This is a prerequisite for international legality and ... it is also necessary to reward this cooperation," he said.
Brussels has threatened to delay EU accession talks with Croatia, due on March 17, unless Zagreb delivers fugitive war crimes suspect Ante Gotovina to The Hague to face war crimes charges relating to Croatia's 1991-1995 conflict.
Zagreb claims that it is doing its utmost to locate the retired general but continues to insist that he has probably fled the country.
Sanader said he remained confident Brussels would decide that Zagreb was in full cooperation with the UN tribunal even without Gotovina's arrest.
"We expect that a judgment that Croatia is cooperating will prevail within the EU," he said.
"We expect that the EU will favor an interperation that full cooperation means that Croatia is doing its utmost to solve the last open issue with The Hague."
Chief UN war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte is due to give a new assessment early this month on whether Zagreb is providing "full cooperation" with the court. In her previous report last year she slammed Zagreb for failing to find Gotovina.
After Croatia, Karamanlis is to visit neighboring Serbia-Montenegro and the UN-run Serbian province of Kosovo.
03/02/2005 17:45 GMT