BELGRADE - European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Thursday praised Serbia's latest cooperation with the UN war crimes court that resulted in the surrender of dozen Serb or Bosnian Serb suspects, saying he hoped it would continue.
"The cooperation with the ICTY has, in the last period of time, been very successful and we hope very much that it will continue with the same commitment that we have seen (recently)," Solana told reporters here after meeting political leaders of Serbia and Montenegro.
A total of 13 Serbian or Bosnian Serb officers have surrendered to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former-Yugoslavia (ICTY) after Serbia came under intense international pressure for failing to cooperate with the war crimes court in The Hague.
Belgrade's cooperation with the ICTY has been a key condition for its closer ties with the European Union.
The European Commission is expected to approve April 12 a feasibility study on negotiating an accord between Serbia and Montenegro -- the two remaining republics of the former Yugoslav federation allied in a loose union -- and the European Union.
The accord would be the first step toward integrating the Balkan country into the 25-member EU.
Serbian officials have indicated that a few more out of 13 suspects believed to be in hiding in Serbia are expected to surrender in the coming days.
However, Belgrade has yet to transfer to the Hague former army chief of staff Nebojsa Pavkovic who has refused to surrender and went into hiding.
Belgrade is also under presure to find and arrest one of two key fugitives wanted for war crimes -- Bosnian Serb wartime military chief Ratko Mladic, believed to have found shelter in Serbia.
Mladic and Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic are wanted for the 1995 massacre in the eastern town of Srebrenica, where Bosnian Serb forces killed some 8,000 Muslim males in the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II.
04/07/2005 18:25 GMT