Tadić predicts Mladić's arrest after elections

Tadić predicts Mladić's arrest after elections

"Mladić must be arrested and extradited to the Hague tribunal, there is no dilemma," Tadić said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I think it is more likely that this job will be done after elections" which are tentatively planned for December.

Serbia's pro-Western president said that the current conservative-led government has been "directly responsible" for the failure so far to arrest the wartime Bosnian Serb army commander — the main precondition for the Balkan country to begin the process toward European Union membership.

Tadić said his Democratic Party, "which has the potential to be the leading power in the future government," could finish the job of arresting the fugitive general who was indicted by the Netherlands-based U.N. war crimes tribunal in 1995 for genocide in the massacre of some 8,000 Muslims in an eastern Bosnian enclave.

He pointed out that the Democrats, who led the government after Slobodan Milošević's ouster from power in 2000 but are now in opposition, extradited the late president to The Hague tribunal in 2001.

"In the future, some other ... people will be tasked with Mladić's arrest," Tadić said. "He will never surrender voluntarily."

"The mere idea that someone is indicted for thousands of deaths of people of other religions and ethnicity, triggers disgust," Tadić said. Mladić "has the right to defend his innocence, but he has to do it before the institution in charge, and that is the Hague tribunal."

"If Mladić does not end up in The Hague, this country's system of values would be jeopardized," Tadić said.

He listed a series of "tasks" that are ahead for the troubled Balkan country, including a referendum later this month on a new constitution, elections and possible decision on the future status of its breakaway Kosovo province.

Tadić warned against hasty decisions on Kosovo's independence which is likely to emerge as a solution in U.N.-mediated talks between Serbia and independence-seeking Kosovo Albanians that are meant to conclude by the end of this year.

He said Kosovo's independence would destabilize the Balkans.

"The first consequence is the destabilization of Macedonia and Montenegro" which have sizable ethnic Albanian minorities, Tadić said. "Anyone who thinks that the independence of Kosovo would put an end to the (secessionist) process ... is gravely mistaken."

"What will happen to Bosnia-Herzegovina?" Tadić asked of the Balkan state which is split between its Muslims, Serbs and Croats.

"I am ultimately against the partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina," Tadić said. "But who will prevent (Bosnia's) political leaders and nation from applying the same principle which was granted to" Kosovo?

The Balkans "need stability and not a new destabilization," Tadić said, referring to a series of ethnic wars in the region in the 1990s.