All remaining war crimes fugitives including former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, will be arrested and sent to The Hague by the end of the year, allowing Belgrade to sign a key cooperation treaty with the European Union, Serbian President Boris Tadic said Friday, according to dpa. "This is our strategic goal ... a moral obligation. We will do everything to arrest all fugitives including Mladic," Tadic told reporters after talks with European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso. At a joint news conference with Tadic, Barroso said the EU hoped to initial a so-called stabilization and association agreement with Serbia - a first step in Belgrade's long road to EU membership - in the coming months. But he warned that the deal would only be formally signed once the government established full cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Chief ICTY prosecutor Carla del Ponte said earlier this week that only four war crimes fugitives including Mladic and Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic were still at large. Mladic is charged with genocide over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims. Barroso said the EU was not linking negotiations on the cooperation pact with a decision on the future status of Kosovo but insisted: "If the (Kosovo) problem is not solved, it will create a lot of problems." Barroso said he recognized that a decision on the future status of Kosovo was a "difficult challenge" for Belgrade. However, the current status quo over the breakaway Serb province, which is under United Nations administration, was not sustainable. A clear political and legal solution for Kosovo must be found, said Barroso. In response, Tadic repeated Belgrade's opposition to the UN plan for supervised independence for Kosovo, saying Serbia would defend its territorial integrity. Independence for Kosovo would create a dangerous precedent for the Balkans, he said. Serbia was ready to negotiate on the issue, said Tadic, adding: "Do not underestimate Serbia's capacity to achieve compromise." Compromise, however, did not mean accepting independence, he warned. Belgrade wants to grant only broad autonomy to the predominantly Albanian-populated province. The EU suspended talks on the stabilization pact with Belgrade last spring, citing the country's failure to arrest Mladic and other war crimes indictees. But negotiations reopened in June after the arrest of Bosnian Serb general Zdravko Tolimir, a close Mladic aide.
