"A key task facing Bosnia and Herzegovina is to eradicate a network of supporters of former Bosnian Serb leaders Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, rather than simply arresting them," Mladen Ivanic said. "We are talking about people who finance and shelter the men wanted by The Hague tribunal."
Karadzic and Mladic, who led ethnic Serbs and Croats in a three-year bloody war between Bosnian Muslims, Croats and Serbs and are still seen as heroes by many Serbs, have topped the list of wanted war crime suspects of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia since 1995.
But Ivanic said their arrest would allow his country to join NATO's Partnership for Peace program and sign a Stability and Association Agreement with the European Union as early as this year.
Cooperation with The Hague is crucial for Bosnia and Herzegovina's accession talks with the EU, which are going smoothly, Ivanic said, adding that it was not a major obstacle to the country's accession bid at the moment.
He said his country maintained close cooperation on the matter with Serbia, and 13 suspects had voluntarily surrendered to The Hague before 2005. Ivanic said his country was anxious to close the issue.
But he said that the 25-nation EU, which admitted 10 new members in 2004 and is scheduled to admit two more states in 2007, was not inclined to further enlargement at the moment.
