The sensitive issue of cooperation between Serbia and the ICTY is on the agenda in a meeting on 4 October between the prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Carla del Ponte and Serbian president Boris Tadic, accompanied by his prime minister Vojislav Kostunika. Del Ponte's arrival in Belgrade on 1 October coincides with mounting pressure from the international community for Serbia to do more in its power to hand over war criminals, including the ICTY's most wanted fugitive, Ratko Mladic. Indicted for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, the former Bosnian Serb general has been on the run from international justice for nine years. The prosecutor is convinced he is hiding in Serbia. In what may appear as a concession to Serb authorities who are extremely wary of the ICTY, Carla del Ponte immediately announced that she will be transferring the first ICTY case to local Serbian courts. The case was an «important» one but she declined to reveal the defendant's identity. However, the announcement was not expected to gloss over the fact that Belgrade is still very much in the international community's bad books. American war crimes ambassador Pierre-Richard Prosper expressed his government's growing impatience on 23 September: «If Belgrade wants to resolve the problems of cooperation with The Hague once and for all, it is going to have to extradite Ratko Mladic» he told the news agency Beta. «Then we can hope to see trials held in Belgrade, including those of the four generals,» he added, referring to the four officers from the Serbian police and armed forces who are wanted by the ICTY. The men - Nebojsa Pavkovic, Vladimir Lazarevic, Sreten Lukic and Vlastimir Djordjevic - are accused of war crimes committed in Kosovo between 1998 and 1999.

On 23 September, Montenegrin members of the national council for cooperation between Serbia-Montenegro and the ICTY resigned from the council in protest over Serbia's lack of cooperation. Montenegro has just been given permission to negotiate its future membership of the European Union independently of Serbia and is keen not to jeopardise this process. The development further isolated Serbia, which reacted with uncharacteristic promptness to these various warnings. On 27 September President Tajic told AFP that «suspects should be sent before the Hague tribunal to face justice *...+ there is no dispute over this point». Two days later, Radio B92 reported that the Belgrade district court had issued arrest warrants against Pavkovic, Lazarevic, Lukic and Djordjevic. Such actions could mean that Serbia is more aware of the consequences of its lack of cooperation with The Hague. On a visit to Belgrade on 30 September, the American deputy secretary of state for political affairs Marc Grossman reminded Serbs how much its failure to cooperate was costing the country: «You are being isolated by the international community and from NATO's Partnership for Peace program,» he said bluntly. The sudden zeal for arresting the four generals might also be explained by the fear of financial sanctions. In early April Serbia already had a taste of the international community's medicine when the United States decided to suspend its aid of 100 million dollars for Serbia's failure to cooperate with the ICTY. ICTY: Early transfer request from Carla del Ponte

Carla del Ponte, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), has requested the transfer to Bosnia of four Bosnian Serbs, all lower to middle-ranking officers, charged with crimes committed in the Omarska, Keraterm and Trnopolje camps. The prosecutor wants to refer the cases for transferral to local jurisdictions as part of the ICTY's strategy to speed up proceedings and wrap up its trials by 2008. In theory, the four men could be tried by the future special war crimes court in Sarajevo, which is due to open in January 2005. However, in practice, nothing is ready. Nor does the Bosnian parliament appear eager to speed things up, having decided at the beginning of September not to act quickly on the required legal amendments to set up the court. This provoked strong criticism from High Representative in Bosnia Paddy Ashdown, who said it «sends an extremely negative signal». After an exchange with Ashdown' s deputy Bernard Frassier, the ICTY president in his preliminary order of 22 September also expressed doubts about the feasibility of transferring the four defendants. The document quotes Bernard Frassier as saying that «there will be no possibility to provide, before the planned date of January 2005, trials that meet the standards of international due process».